King Solomon's Gold Mines — Alistair Graham

In Rider Haggard's 1885 classic, King Solomon's Mines, Allan 'Hunter' Quatermain claims to have found the long-lost mines in southern Africa. But Quatermain was mistaken - leaving the whereabouts of the fabulous gold of Ophir that Solomon used to gild his magnificent golden temple in Jerusalem still shrouded in mystery. Quatermain picks up the trail where Haggard left off, shifting the search for Ophir to the Horn of Africa where the Quatermains came to believe King Solomon's mines really were. Quatermain's grandson Rider has long been in thrall to the romance of the gold of Ophir and moves in 1906 to Kenya's lawless Northern Frontier District to pick up the trail where his grandfather left off. Ophir he believes was somewhere between northern Kenya and the biblical Land of Punt on the Somali coast. He travels to the holy Moslem city of Harar in north-eastern Ethiopia - the gateway to Punt - where he becomes embroiled in romance of another sort that ultimately ends in tragedy. The story is narrated by Rider's son Alan, who has inherited the Quatermain obsession with finding King Solomon's gold mines. He graphically recounts his family's adventures and escapades that lead to the final confrontation between his father and his tragic destiny.