Golden Altar by Michael J. Merry

From the Publisher

In January of 1671 the pirate, Henry Morgan, captured and sacked Panama City. In an amazing feat of arms he crossed the Isthmus of Panama and attacked the city from the east, something that military strategists of the day said was impossible. Morgan took considerable booty from Panama but missed the fabled Golden Altar, a priceless artifact which local churchmen had painted with creosote to avoid detection.

This story tells in detail of Morgan's invasion and of his rage when he eventually discovered what he and his band of buccaneers had overlooked. It goes on to relate how an ancestor, Major Henry Morgan, a British army officer who passed through Panama when returning from the Faulklands war, goes back in 1985 to steal the altar himself. The amazing details of his preparations for the robbery and the melting and disposal of the gold are explained at length in this book.

The descriptions of Morgan's raid in 1671 and of the City of Panama in 1985 are accurate. However, the unviolated Golden Altar still resides to day in the church of San Jose in the old part of the city. It's not far from where General Manuel Antonio Noriega's infamous Defense Forces headquarters stood until 1989, when the US invasion destroyed the complex and life in Panama changed forever.

About the Author
Michael J. Merry was educated at the Royal Liberty School in Essex, England. He trained as a telecommunications instructor and traveled to Latin America to work. He lived there for the next 28 years, primarily in the Republic of Panama. When the National Guard staged their coup in 1968 he drove the President and his Chief of Staff, who happened to be his father-in-law, through the military blockade to safety in the Canal Zone. He went on to manage a major U.S. news operation in Latin America, traveling widely in the process. He was in Argentina when the Army revolted in1987and Venezuela during the attempted coup by Lt. Colonel (now President) Hugo Chavez in 1992. He eventually moved to Miami scripting two nationally televised financial programs and became Managing Editor of a widely read financial report. Mr. Merry and his wife live close to their two sons and two grandsons in Miami Shores, Florida.

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