Quest for the Golden Hare, by Bamber Gascoigne (Cape, 1983)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
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I recently unearthed this book while unboxing my collection, and had been hesitating to read it because I didn't want my own quest to end. It is, of course, the companion to Kit Williams' phenomenal Masquerade, the puzzle-book/treasure hunt that captivated Britain and the world from 1979 to 1981. While the titular golden hare, crafted by Williams, has long since been found, Masquerade still remains a combination children's story and art book, featuring anagrams, magic squares, and other hidden puzzles. (It was even used as a story-telling/meditation at a community Ostara circle in Calgary several years ago.)  One still can, at one's leisure, attempt to find where the jewel was buried, and even knowing the location and Williams' methodology, try to reconstruct it. To be honest, I skipped over the portion of the book dealing with the actual construction of the puzzle, and the "perfect solution", in order to do just that.
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Bamber Gascoigne is a British journalist who was present with Williams for the burying of the hare, and Quest for the Golden Hare documents the project from conception to execution, to the final discovery of the jewel under controversial (nay, disastrous) circumstances. It includes a number of profiles of the more avid hunters and their ingenious, but mostly misguided, attempts to make sense of the clues and red herrings Williams inserted into the book. It also includes the "perfect solution" submitted by two treasure-hunters coincidental with the finding of the jewel.
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I strongly doubt that treasure hunts like this could be done today, as the internet facilitates discussion and collusion much more efficiently than it was 35 years ago. The two-year hunt for the hare could be reduced to weeks, perhaps even days. But the puzzle, and the story, endures.