Claire asked Warren Dean:

Is The Treasure Hunters inspired by the fabled Treasure of the Trinity and have you watched the Discovery channel show Treasure Quest: Snake Island? There was a lot of intrigue and misdirection and bad mojo mentioned and I remember thinking at the time what a fascinating subject to write about.

Warren Dean No, although I have always been fascinated by treasure hunting stories of all kinds. I watched a couple of episodes of Snake Island, but have not been following it. My favourite treasure mystery is that of the money pit on Oak Island; also the subject of a TV series. I doubt that the mystery will ever be solved, as the money pit area has been dug up and filled in so many times in the past, and it is more than likely that whatever treasure there may have been has already been found and spirited quietly away by whoever found it.
What I find most interesting are the many theories of who dug the original money pit and for what purpose. My personal favourite is the one about Knights Templar having crossed the Atlantic in Viking ships in order to spirit some of their riches away from the French King (who disbanded and persecuted the order in the 1300s because he owed it more money than he could ever repay). Templar knights escaping persecution are known to have scattered throughout Europe, including Scandinavia, and the Vikings are known to have crossed the Atlantic hundreds of years before Columbus, so the idea is plausible, although not necessarily true.
As far as The Treasure Hunters is concerned, I have no firm idea of where the idea of writing about the search for an ancient shipwreck came from, but once it popped into my head, I decided that the most compelling story would be that of what sank the ship, and what happened to the treasure it was carrying. And then, of course, being a sci-fi writer, I had to ask myself; "What if the treasure turns out to be something completely unexpected?"

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