PLEASE HELP!!! me find this book. Someone must know what it is.

[NotTheDuchessOfCambridge]

Hi all, hoping to find a book I read back in the 90s, though the book could be 80s.
It was a condensed book in a readers digest hardback book (4 different books in 1).
It was about a man (investigator??) who had to get all his clues to a treasure from an old painting.
The painting was obscure (think Salvador Dali), it had a chess board on the floor and all the people facing left had tears on their cheek because they were lying (the clues they gave were false).
There was a tree on a hill. A ladder maybe.
I cannot remember the name of the book or the author and it’s driving me crazy as I really want to read it again!
It has the feel of a Dan Brown book, following ancient clues.

Inspired by Blue Planet tonight. Read it around 1990. Set in Australia. Man ends up in.slightly magical.place after being torn apart by coral. Falls in love with woman (magic all woman?) Who saves him. Some other magical creatures. Big message about ecosystems Tec.

Ah, I was mixing two things up - the boyfriend/motorbike book is My Darling Villain by Lynne Reid Banks. Still on the hunt for the pink haired fashion designer!

Harriet My Darling Villain? Lynne Reid Banks and Jean Ure were staples of my early 90s library.

Ooh, noodle x post. Recognised the book immediately. The suburbs seemed terrifyingly dull-even though I lived in the area end of nowhere, 30 miles from the nearest big town!

Polly! You’re a superstar, that sounds like it.** Been trying to work it out for years

MIpMipMip- bit of a long shot, but you wouldn’t be thinking of The Chrysalids by John Wyndham? About a group of young people in a post -disaster society who have telepathic powers. They have to go on the run because their fundamentalist religious community regards any deviation from normal to be an abomination. Not strictly a children’s book, but would certainly have been in school libraries a few years back.

It doesn't look like it's that Timbuktu. Might have to read them sometime though.

Sadly not Polly. Although I really must read that again.

I'm starting to think that the book didn't exist. Sadly gifted children running away is not exactly going to produce low results on google....

I have as book - young teen/child's book about a UK where gymnastics has become like football with teams all around the country. One of the teams is called the shepherds bushwhackers. The gymnasts are paid a lot but overworked. One of them dies falling off the barre. The team then recruit her younger sister as she's really good at the barre and the mum feels powerless to say no.

Hollie, it's 'The Fortunate Few', by Tim Kennemore.

Thanks Matilda. Its funny how some books stay in your head.

Ah that’s a shame @MipMipMip

I found this thread on good reads which has a few suggestions. www.goodreads.com/topic/show/97930-psychic-children-kidnapped-and-held-institute-trained-to-use-powers

Where was it set?

I've got one, I read it in the eighties and can hardly remember much of it but I remember there was a girl as the main heroine she had some kind of family mystery to solve and I am sure the end was quite thrilling and was set on an English beach called Silver sands. Google and amazon not showing anything I was an avid library goer so may have been obscure.

Mumontherun, was it definitely Silver Sands?

Just wondered if it might be The Way to Sattin Shore by Philipa Pearce, which I loved. The beaches have slightly similar names.

Keithlemonde - That's exactly it! Thanks so much -I have been googling all afternoon with no luck . I know it was one of my favourites -thanks! xxx

I asked my brother about the book I'm looking for as I'm fairly sure it was one of his books originally (frog/man living under or in the centre of the earth). He says he will look on his shelves - in over 50 years he has never got rid of a single book!!!

giantofillinois it’s just possible that your Australian coral book is Isle of the Sea Horse by H.F. Brinsmead. Unfortunately not much on the internet about the plot, but it features some castaways and is set on or near the Great Barrier Reef. Also HFB was very into environmental issues.

@MarklahMarklah that was one of the series by Tom Holt, think it might be The Portable Door?

Ooh, thanks Polly think I read it when I was about ten but it's really stuck with me. Anyone else find that having kids really makes you revisit the books you once read? Not that dc are interested-old books are 'too slow.'

Not sure it's the one. Mine had references to modern issues so guessing written in 80s. There was a kind of love story between the human male and the slightly magic al island girl.

I read quite a few 'Thursday's child' books when I was younger

One of them has a drawn picture of a teenage boy on the front....any ideas?

Ok tiny google & mine was called Thursday not Thursday's child D'oh!

Hollies I loved The Fortunate Few, read it many times as a teenager. Thanks for reminding me of it.

I hope you don’t mind me adding to this! There are several books I read as an older child/teenager that’d I’d love to track down but one that for some reason stayed with me and I’d love to rediscover, is the story of 2 girls set during the war. Both evacuated but switched places. They agreed to switch back afterwards but in the end one refuses to give up her identity. I’m pretty sure that was the rough storyline. I have a feeling there was some connection to Ireland in there but don’t know if I am getting muddled! Thanks all

Thanks @MrsAngel - I have read a few Tom Holt books in the past (but also Robert Rankin who tends to overlap in terms of some of the ideas). I'll try to get hold of it from the library. The online spiel about it isn't offering up any knights but it could well be a later one in the same series.