Black Treasure

Sandy Steele Adventures #1

by Roger Barlow

Sandy Steele and Quiz Taylor enter the Regional Science Fair with a project that shows how petroleum can be located beneath the earth. The boys are disappointed when their project loses to Pepper March's creation that transmits sound via a light beam. Sandy and Quiz's spirits rise when John Hall, owner of a small drilling company, invites the boys to work with him all summer as he hunts for oil in the Four Corners area.

159 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Roger Barlow is a pen-name used by publisher Simon and Schuster. Authors who wrote books under the name include: Robert Leckie (Black Treasure and Fire at Red Lake), John Ott (Danger at Mormon Crossing), Jack Pearl (Stormy Voyage and Secret Mission to Alaska), and John Stephen Doherty (Troubled Waters).

Reviews

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a series of six Sandy Steele Adventure books that were written for the YA crowd back in the late-1950s. The publisher Simon & Schuster contacted with a few established authors, who wrote under the pen name Roger Barlow for this series. Very similar in style and tone to the Hardy Boys Mysteries, Black Treasure was book one in the Sandy Steele Adventure series ... and it was a delight. It did not treat the YA crowd as silly and it did not talk down to them ... and sometimes seemed a bit advanced even for the YA level.

This tale of oil drilling in the Far West teaches the reader a smidgen of the lingo and process for finding and drilling for oil. So it is a bit of a history book and an education ... all wrapped into one. The tale touches on a bit of Indian culture, the Four Corners Region of the United States, Kit Carson, and some general knowledge about the Old West. While modern day readers might look for the next Harry Potter series to come along (as do I), or prefer The Hunger Games or Divergent types of futuristic/dystopian books, this little throwback was very entertaining. All in all a nicely produced little tale.