FOR FANS OF WILBUR SMITH, CLIVE CUSSLER & MATTHEW REILLY A STORY OF PIRATE TREASURE, A GIRL & A LOVE AFFAIR FOR THE AGES

Benito’s treasure is the second great unsolved Australian treasure legend alongside Lasseter’s Reef. It involves the tale of one Bennett Grahame aka Benito ‘Bloody Sword’ Bonito, a Royal Navy captain turned pirate, a girl and a love affair that would shake the very fabric of the Spanish Main and the Royal Navy itself.

With a Chilian army marching on Lima and an impending blockade of its port, Captain Bennett Grahame of HMS Devonshire was entrusted by the Viceroy and priests of Lima with the so-called Devonshire Treasure worth $400 million in today’s currency, ordered to run the blockade and return to port when safe. But Captain Grahame has fallen in love with the Viceroy’s daughter Teresa, who no longer a virgin is ordered back to Madrid in disgrace aboard the galleon Santa Katerina Isabella, there to enter a monastery.

The Viceroy and priests of Lima never saw their treasure again. Legend has it that Captain Grahame pursued and attacked the Isabella to rescue the love of his life thereby becoming the pirate Benito, finally sailing across the Pacific to bury the Devonshire treasure in a cave at Queenscliff, Victoria, but despite a number of well-funded expeditions it has never been found. Benito’s Truth is a novel about what really happened.