Treasure of the Tiger

Wallace Boys #17

by Duncan Watt

In the seventeenth book in the Wallace Boys series, Nigel and Bruce arrive in Singapore in South-East Asia, having sailed nearly halfway round the world in the Silver Spray. They meet up with two Singaporeans, Kheng Peng, a Chinese boy, and Zainal, a Malay. A radio mayday message, in Kheng Peng’s possession, from a Japanese ship in the closing stages of the Pacific War together with a visit to a former fighter of the Japanese in the famous Malayan stay-behind Force 136 lead the boys to realize they are on the trail of adventure; namely, General Yamashita (the ‘Tiger of Malaya’) Tomoyuki’s legendary treasure.Their trail takes them to a small island, Pulau Tulai, near Malaysia’s Pulau Tioman where they find more clues to the location of the treasure - and they find these clues under an unexploded World War Two bomb! Following an intensive scuba-diving course for the two Singaporeans, the boys set sail across the South China Sea.

Genres: Fiction, Adventure

237 pages, Paperback

First published November 14, 1994

About the author

Born near Victoria Falls in what was then Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, Watt, the only child of British parents, traveled to more than 80 countries around the world. Finally settling in Singapore in 1976.

He worked as a teacher and administrator at the British Council until he retired in 1992.

For 16 years, he read the prime time news on Channel 5 for the then Singapore Broadcasting Corporation. He also hosted an afternoon program on Symphony 92.4, playing light classics, until 2004.

His 20-book Wallace Boys series was set in far-flung places such as Kariba, Zimbabwe, the Skeleton Coast and the Scottish Highlands. He researched the locations for his books as thoroughly as possible, making it a point not to write anything he himself had not experienced.

Watt was diagnosed with liver cancer in June 2016. He died on 7 September 2017 at the age of 74.

Reviews

[Roberta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that this series about the Wallace brothers is better than the Hardy Boys. While the brothers, Nigel and Bruce, are no more real than the Hardy Boys, their adventures are as exciting and the settings are 100% better. The author knows all the ins and outs of the remote islands of the South China Sea, the setting for this book. The illustrations are unusual but outstanding. Some of the illustrations are drawings by Paul O'Shea, and some are drawings of equipment, charts or maps.

In each book the Wallace brothers meet up with someone, usually a local, who knows more about the current puzzle or geographical area than they do and, in exchange, they offer the local their expertise or experience. In this book Bruce and Nigel are still on their year or two off from attending university in Zimbabwe and sailing the yacht Silver Spray from Scotland out to the Pacific Ocean. In this book they meet two Singaporeans about their age, Lim Kheng Peng, a Chinese boy, and Zainal Abidin bin Hassan, a Malay. Kheng Peng has clues about a lost WWII sunken treasure so Nigel and Bruce teach Kheng Peng and Zainal how to SCUBA dive and the boys go on a treasure hunt. The action takes place in the South China Sea and on the island of Tulai which is very near Pulau Tioman where the author says some scenes for the movie "South Pacific" were shot in 1957.

The reason for 4 stars instead of 5 is partly that the author included footnotes that I thought were unnecessary. Some of the footnotes could easily have been incorporated into the text and the rest could have been omitted entirely. There was also an incident near the end of the book when Nigel got to the fifth stage of grief so fast it made my head spin.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Piqued by the reporting of the death of the author recently, who was a local celebrity of sorts in Singapore, being a newscaster and familiar face on the evening local news channel, I checked out this title, one in a series of YA fiction he penned known as the 'Wallace adventures'. This particular story was an obvious choice for me due to the local setting and WW2 backdrop - the boys were on a treasure hunt for the rumored sunken gold of General Yamashita. Watt is an excellent writer and managed to keep up a good pace throughout the novel. Other than the light and good humored tone, this book is equally suitable for an adult audience. A great deal of technical explanation on sailing and SCUBA diving was also covered, sufficient to ignite an interest in these hobbies in younger readers I reckon.

I will be reading the next in the series, still set in Malaysia, as the Wallace boys and their local friends continue uncovering the clues found in this adventure, which will lead them back to the mainland!

[Mike Debaptiste · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another Wallace Boys book (check out wallaceboysbooks.com/ ) that takes place in the Southeast Asia area. The boys are again sailing with their friends from Singapore and get involved in a mystery relating back to World War 2 featuring a thrilling adventure on an island with an unexploded bomb. There is also a lot of scuba diving as they search for contraband treasure on a sunken Japanese warship. This is not a series to be missed! It's terrific!