Treasure's Location | Joel A. Robinson on Publishing His First Novel at 92

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Hello and welcome to author conversations again and as usual I'm Chris Dabbs.

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Today I'm delighted to welcome an author whose publishing journey proves that well it's

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never too late to fulfill a lifelong ambition. Joel A. Robinson is a Korean War veteran and

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the author of Treasure's location, his debut novel, published at the remarkable age I

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can't believe this Joel of 92. Combining historical intrigue, financial

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mystery and high stakes suspense, the novel follows a Wall Street executive who looses

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everything before becoming drawn into an international search for a hidden fortune.

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A mystery that stretches from New York to post-war Europe, uncovering secrets that have

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been buried for decades, but beyond the pages of the book is an equally compelling and

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super interesting story. Joel's journey reminds us that experience, perseverance and creativity

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don't have an expiry date, right? And that some stories take a lifetime to tell. Joel,

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it's an absolute pleasure and an honor to welcome you to author conversations. How are you?

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Well, you have a British accent I think. Exactly, exactly. I'm graduating from England

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in 1931. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, cool. Well, they were then. So you're half British as well.

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What can you say? If he was from Leeds, if you know, but yes, but actually, you know,

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the basis of writing the book, are you familiar with the record of the Atosha, the Watches

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Treasure Finder in the United States? No, I'm not. I'm not. But there'd be other people

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that aren't either. So what is that then? Well, it was a professor from a person and he

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became hooked on finding treasure. And it is obviously one of the most complex things

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because it's either buried in thousands of feet of water or in the tapas of mountains,

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but he for some reason was successful. And I happen to know a girl who was a diver on the

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boat. She was married to Fisher's son. And I had gotten involved with them to try to

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monetize the treasure. It was one thing to find the treasure, which was on the bottom of

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the ocean for 300 years. And they had these cornings, but they were all the terrible shape. And

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I had the idea that that year was the year that the Olympics were going to be in Spain.

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So I said, let's make this the coin of the Olympics. And you can sell these for $5, $50,

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whatever. It was a great idea. And my wife, my first wife, who was now passed away, but

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she was from Spain. So she spoke Spanish fluently. So I sent her to the Spanish vacation and

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they almost killed her. They said, what the hell are you doing? You were stealing our money.

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And that got me involved in not only the treasure and monetizing treasure, but the legal rules

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to doing it, which is very interesting. And the state has barred us to him trying to get

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them, oh, a bunch of people tried to get the money. And he was successful. And that was

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how I became interested in in the treasure of money. It's very high. And of course, like to

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the book. You know, actually, now you're mentioning that about off the coast of Florida and

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everything else. I think that's what he said, wasn't it? And that kind of rings the bell.

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So maybe for other people, they'll also remember that because, yeah, I mean, the law around treasure

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hunting, I mean, in the UK, it's in Britain, it's really interesting and really complicated.

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But international waters who still own something, yeah, that sounds great. I mean, no wonder

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you got intrigued with it. And of course, there's a few bucks to be made as well, right?

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Well, you know, almost everyone wants something for nothing, which is a mistake that all

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human beings need to have. And another part to the, to my life story, I was head of the

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statistical analyzing section of Chase Manhattan Bank in the late 1950s. And we were doing

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something which was very new, which was preparing the mathematics of the sales department that

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it could sell life insurance or retirement agreement. And one of the people I was working

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with was a mathematical genius. And one day came to me and he said, you know, Joe, I've never

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been to the racetrack. I said, no, I haven't either. He said, but I found something. Horses

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that run in the front win at 37% or higher. And if we could figure out a way to warn something

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about horses, we can make a lot of money. I said, really? Now, I was going to Columbia at night,

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and we began researching this. And we found that if you made five bets starting at $5, you

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bet $5, and at the worst, then you bet $10, then you bet 20, then you bet 40, and then you

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bet 80. You'd never lose five bets in a row betting with the system. So we thought, so

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we saved our money. And we went out to the racetrack. Took about three months to, we were very

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poor kids. And we tried the system and lo and behold it worked. And after a short period of time,

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now you get to realize how poor I was as a young man. All of a sudden, I had a tremendous

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amount of wealth. I was now buying clothes. I was dating a girl who was a movie star and going

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to the best clubs in New York and had suddenly gone from the lowest to the highest in a very

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short period of time. And everything was wonderful until one day, the system stopped working.

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Now we examined this. Nothing seemed to have changed. But there's one thing about gambling.

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It is a gamble. And after a while, I realized this was not going to work. And I was going

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to lose my tuition. And I felt that going to college was more important than anything else. And

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that was the end of my racetrack. Eventually, you know, I was paying my way at Columbia at the

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racetrack, which is sort of an odd way to do things. And I took a job as a working inductor

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revs laboratory, put making slides at a dollar an hour. So I had gone from the very top to

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the very bottom, the great wasn't. And that again was part of what I did when writing this book

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because the people that were searching for treasure were looking to become independent

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with wealthy. But what they went through was a surprise to them and what the basis of the

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book is all about. Interesting. It's kind of like a boom and bust, but on the personal level,

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right? And if you'll treasure hunting, you'll, I don't know if that's the right phrase to use,

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treasure hunting. But if you'll treasure hunting, I guess you've got investors, you've got obviously

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staff to pay, all that sort of stuff. If you're doing a big, you know, maritime kind of a recovery,

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right? Well, actually part of the book, or a main part of the book is the treasure that the Nazis

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took during the, she Hitler when he wrote my accounts and wanted to go to war and occupy all Europe,

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he found out the one thing he didn't have was money. And it cost an enormous amount to wage war.

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And so he, they would, he would raise taxes twice in Germany, but the best side treaty really had

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handicapped Germany. It was bankrupt. And this, you were going back into the early 30s.

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Well, he becomes president. He's going to lead her in 32, 1932. So he hires this group to begin to

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steal from the banks, and especially in Antwerp, where the diamonds are right. And if anybody who's

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going to catch him, he was going to say, this is done by the communists, not by the Germans, who

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had done secretly. And none of these guys were prosecuted at the end of the war, in 1945. But

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during this period, the Germans had sold one billion, not millions, billions of dollars. I'm

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talking about billions of dollars as of in 1945. And almost none of that has been found,

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which is, and so as in in the book, now the book is totally factual, except for the character.

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So the character would be in Germany looking for something, and that's all very true.

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But anyway, what happens with these people in the book is that suddenly,

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looking for treasure, and doing something they didn't realize was dangerous, became extremely

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dangerous. The number of people that have been killed looking for treasure is very interesting.

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There was one, for example, a man who drowned in Australia, working food, and turned out he was

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an Olympic swimmer. So unlikely he died on his own. Well, he was looking for treasure.

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And all that makes up the book in, in, in, of course, the human interest side of it.

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See, that sounds, that sounds really interesting. I'm fascinated because of course,

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what you're saying there is that if you were looking for treasure, someone else wants that treasure,

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and they'll do anything to get it, basically.

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Well, you have not only the people it was stolen from, but you have the German government who

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wants to make reparation. You have Wiesens, Wiesens Stahl, you know, who's one of the people looking for,

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and he had the Israeli government looking for it. And suddenly you have a lot of competition.

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But then you have the ex Nazis who, well, in 1945, as they grew older, they had people that they trained

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who were then looking for the treasure, and they become part of the story.

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And the thing by one, it we've, Europe and, and goes to the United States, whether these guys have

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found some of this treasure, but in fact, that's very difficult the whole lot.

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You know, when you find something, the only thing is important is whether you can keep it at

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it or not. Exactly. I think that's, that's amazing.

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Double statement. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess, you know, that's what your main character, Jim

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Comifer, you know, that's where he goes through, I guess, right, loses everything almost overnight,

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like he was saying earlier, before setting out, looking for this treasure and things. I mean,

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what interested you then about beginning the story with such a dramatic sort of personal

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financial and every, you know, crash or collapse, and then to go on from there?

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Well, Comifer is part of a, a, a, a company, Drexel Burnham and, and they in fact did go back

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rough and he wound up losing his job. He was making $650,000 a year, which was a lot of money in those days.

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And he realized making a great amount of salary was fine, but you need at least $10 million

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in the mag to be totally independent. Which is, that was, that was $10 billion. And so,

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that is how he, he learns about William Bennett, who's a socialite in New York, an fictional

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character, but apparently Bennett has found the treasure because he's living at a very high level.

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He has a co-op on Fifth Avenue. He's dating a more beautiful woman in New York. Where did he get

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in the money? Well, he's killed an automobile accident. And when he's killed, they look at his amount

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of money he had and they can't film it any way. So, how is this guy living in a, a, a, high lifestyle

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like this? Where was he getting the money? And that is the research that Comifer goes into and

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believes, see, the one thing about treasure is everybody knows it's out there. Nobody knows who

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are at that. That's the title of the book. The treasure's location. Where is it? Well, he,

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Comifer would decide that he, that Bennett must have hidden the money either in Manhattan,

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Connecticut, New Jersey, someplace close by. He certainly wouldn't put it in Siberia. So,

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that again is a major part of the book, you know, how he goes and, and, and, and where he's confronted with.

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Which is, which is amazing, you know, the detail that you've gone into in that respect, I mean,

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you know, the story, it travels through what, across continents, as you were saying, from Europe,

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you know, to the US and back again. I, I'm through history, you know, it's not just six months worth of

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story, is it? It, it stretches over a long time, as you say. But I mean, how much research was

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involved in creating, you know, such a fascinating, yeah. I am, although my education, I, I was a

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major in philosophy at Columbia, but I've always been interested in history. And, so,

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in the book, part of the book is the foundation of Mossad in Israel. Once again, searching, they,

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they were, you know, looking to search for the treasure. And the book starts in that part of the world

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in 1947 before the, uh, hours attack. And, and, and the individual who became a fictional character

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with part of the OASS during the Second World War. And then, uh, the, the, the, the, the, I, I was also in a,

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intelligent operation in Germany and realized how dangerous that type of work is, uh, could be honest,

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with you, I am not qualified. I wasn't, and I am not today qualified to do that. You have to

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maintain a personality 24 hours a day, whatever fiction you're trying to put it up. And, uh, so I know

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how dangerous that work was. And he leaves, uh, the OASS in that one at the end of the war,

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but is called back by the Israeli part of the story. And they need his background to form the Mossad.

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She, and he is then gets involved in that. And then he sent the Europe to find the Nazi treasure,

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which he is, I said, but things don't want. He is not able to do. But, uh, I went together all those

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disparate parts, uh, to make up the story and, and, uh, and then concluded with what eventually happens at

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the end of the book. Well, yeah, obviously don't tell us about that, but I mean, he is, I'm

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trying to give you back the back. I don't get way the way I slide, but that's, that's really all right.

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Exactly. Wow. So you, you're intertwining the creation of Mossad and, oh, right, I mean, you know,

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going really into how post war, well, the world, the post war world, um, has actually moved on since

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since that the second world war. I mean, you know, I guess readers always love stories about

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hidden treasure, right? And unself mysteries. It's always one of those things, isn't it? But why do you

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think that people love that? You, I think you kind of mentioned it earlier on, didn't you? But why

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do you think that people like these sort of genres and also when they're mixed together?

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Well, the book essentially is an entertainment to begin with. It's, I'm certainly not writing is a,

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the history writer or, well, philosophy is part of the book and part of my education, but, uh, essentially,

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it's an entertainment and I wrote it as such. And so, uh, it has a beginning, middle and end. Uh, and,

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uh, it, uh, it, it concludes, uh, what these people are doing. And hopefully, uh, the book is written

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with enough to hold the reader's interest. Uh, you know, it, it, it, I found this, uh, surprising to me.

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I, I took four years of English at Columbia. I took six years of French, mostly in literature.

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And I thought I had the background to be a writer. Well, I believe it or not, I do very,

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little about writing book. And it's only been the help of my editor that has put me on the right

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course. And I realized how complicated it is, which didn't appear to be something difficult,

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but it was very difficult. Now, I mean, not only the, uh, the research, uh, and then again,

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the quality of the writing, obviously, that's got to be very important. But, uh, uh, I found it very

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entertaining. Uh, now here I am at 92 years old. And the, my real, I think it's, yeah, I'm still working

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five days a week. I have a printing company I founded 50 years ago. And, uh, but I'm in an old age home

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for a very odd reason. Uh, let me give you the background of that. Uh, my wife passed away in 2021.

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And my daughter wanted to go to Paris, uh, and take the grandchildren as something for them. And

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he insisted I go, well, I'm a disabled veteran from the Korean War. I was shot in the service.

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And so I'm in a wheelchair. Now, mentally, I'm very mental, acute. I speak these, you know,

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very soundly and so forth, but I didn't want to go, but she insisted. Of course, I had to pay for it.

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So we go to Europe, go to Paris. And I've never been concerned with my health. My health has

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always been fantastic. But I'm coughing a butt, which would scare me. Well, I didn't pay attention.

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I said, I can't be anything important. My son all wanted to call a doctor when we got to Paris. I

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said, I don't want to hear it. So the next morning they came into the room and bed was filled with

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butt. He called the house doctor. They rushed me to a hospital. And now they were examining me to

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see what was wrong. I went at the cardiac arrest and died. There's true stories. So they called me

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to order and they said, you gotta come to the hospital and get the body and take it back to the

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United States. And some, no, let me make the difference. A heart attack, your heart keeps working.

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Cardiac arrest, a heart stop. You only have about four minutes. Otherwise you have brain damage.

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Well, I was dead for, I don't know how long. I can't tell you that factually. But at some point

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somebody walked by and they said, this guy is breathing. And the first doctor said, that's impossible.

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I, she told me that anyway. And well, but she called my daughter, rushed to a hospital. I wake up.

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And I have no idea what happened. And everybody's crying. You know, my two grandchildren, my,

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that daughter of my son-in-law. And she was so frightened by this that she wanted no,

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you'll not allow me to live at home. And she said, you've got to go to an assistant,

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live it. She lives in Westport. So I went to an assistant living nearby. And that's what I'm doing

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here. Still running my business and writing books. I give lectures once a month. But,

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and I've never had a recurrence of it. But it's an odd story, but a, but a, but a, a,

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so you never interviewed a dead person before. That's amazing. And no, I haven't, that, that,

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I don't know what to say. I mean, are you actually there? Yeah, you are. So I mean, I have not interviewed

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a dead person before. That's quite amazing, Joel. That's a story. How long ago was that, by the way?

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That was 2021, Christmas. And I moved to assistant living 2022.

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Any? And I've been here ever since. And it's the fact that I'm incapacitated,

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and the fact that I don't walk well, I've been in wheelchair. I mean, I have three bullet holes

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in my right leg. That's what's causing the problem. But mentally, I haven't changed, you know,

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I was interviewed twice by the Wall Street Journal over the last six months about my age.

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They want to know what I was doing, what type of things. And I don't take anything. I don't take

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medication. You know, your DNA, you can do nothing about it. It's even good or bad.

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You can hurt yourself if you smoke five packs of cigarettes a day. I've never been taken

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in a legal drug. So those are the things that can be deleterious to your health. But the rest of

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it is just, I really don't understand why I'm so different from almost everybody here at this

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facility, given my age. So you neighbors there? I think, I asked what we would say,

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sprightly, you know, sort of like energetic and aware all the time, if you know what I mean.

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Is you the outlier here? Oh, I'm clearly an outlier, yes. Well, the extent they may be president

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of the residence here because of my mental capacity, you know, they handle it. You need to go around

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and see people and try to get things done. But between that and my lectures every month and writing

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books and of course running my business, it's really, I'm busy now that I was 10 years ago.

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That's not supposed to be the plan, Joel. It's supposed to be at a calm down. Yeah,

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and rest in the garden or whatever it is that you like to do, right? But I mean, you have achieved

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something that many aspiring writers, you know, they hope that wish that they could actually

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a starter book be keep going with it, see, finish it and you know, then be able to publish it, right?

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And they might just be, I don't know, middle aged or whatever that may mean. But I mean, you have

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actually done it and you've gone through everything. So it's quite a rare thing as well, really.

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So what's all this meant personally to you to hold your published novel in your hands at your age?

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And I'm sorry to keep going on about your age. Well, to begin with, and there's no fool like an awful,

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let me make that point very clear, but I don't really consider myself, oh, I mean, I started this

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around 91, I'm 92 now, but I like to write. And it was, I did it for my own interest.

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And I did, well, what was most important and most interesting, I've found that writing was not

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done as well as it should be done. And fortunately, when I got a hold of the publisher and they

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were very interested in doing it, and he said, send me a copy of your book and let me, they liked

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the, the, the plot, which was very always very real in the setting, but they, they made a number of

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corrections, which I began to understand, like anything else, whether you're a baseball player or a writer,

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there are certain things you need to be able to do to be successful. And really, that my,

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my interest was not in making money. I mean, I'm making money with my business and other things,

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to be nice to make money. I don't want to say I don't want to make anything, but I really wasn't

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interested in that. I was interested in writing and then having a factual response to the book,

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is it any good? And that is difficult to get, you know, you don't go to somebody's house

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to dinner and, and criticize their children. It's hard to get people to be honest. Yeah.

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What I write is it any good? And I've gotten a lot of praise, but I've always been

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questionable about it. And I thought the only way to be certain that when I'm writing is good,

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is if people buy the book. And that still remains an open question, you know, despite all the

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components I've been getting. Well, yeah. And they will say, oh, you've done really, we,

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really well for an old guy kind of thing, right? So you don't hear that. Yeah, you don't hear that.

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You know, I suppose after going to Columbia for so long and studying so hard, you know,

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you've got a bit of academic in you as well and you want feedback. You don't want, like, just

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comments, just saying, oh, yeah, exactly. And nobody, that is nobody improves unless they accept criticism.

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And nobody likes, including myself. But I know that I'm never going to get better unless I listen to

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the critics. And that takes, you have, well, I've worn that a long time ago. I'll tell you a quick story.

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I had approached printing and very quickly, everybody that's involved with printing,

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he does it with ink or thermal transfer. And I realized that those are very poor systems,

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but that was all that existed. And I thought the way to do this was laser technology, which does work

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except it doesn't make a washable ink. And so the government regulations in the United States

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will hire a label to be washable for 25 long rings or 12 dry queens. And I couldn't solve the problem.

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So I hired a guy one day and he said, I know somebody you can do this. There's three Russian scientists

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in Brooklyn that can solve this problem. So I went out there and talked to them. And he said, yes,

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absolutely, we can solve this problem. We want $45,000 and we'll do it. I said, how long will take you?

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He said three months. I said, tell you what, I'll give you 15,000. Show me what you can do after a month.

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Well, after a month, they made progress, but there wasn't anything there. The long story short,

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it took three years to solve the problem. And I poured so much money, and then I almost went out of

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business. I wouldn't drop it. That shows them not very smart. However, the Russian scientists came up

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with it and I had the product, which is now patented. I actually made $1.1 million at

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the appersonally. And everybody then said to me, I was a genius. Before that, they also said, I was a fool.

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Actually, they were right. I was very, very foolish. And so I've never forgotten that lesson

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of people praising you and what the real story is.

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It's like when you see somebody driving around in a great car or whatever, isn't it? And you know,

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some people would read jealous or make comment. Oh, wow. I wish I had that for our, but no one knows

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the backstory to it. And you know, all that sort of stuff as well. So no, I'm totally there. Well,

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Joel, we are quickly running out of time, unfortunately. But yeah, we could talk for days either.

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You're fascinating person. And I'm not just blowing smoke, as they say. I actually mean it.

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So let me ask you this, right? So when you've got your readers and they've just finished the book,

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okay, what thoughts are you hoping that they have at the end of that book? What are they going to put

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that book down and say, wow, or what? What do you want them to think? I would hope they would be

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entertained. That would be the most important part. And the construction of the book is around

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actual events. The one thing I've always bought, I'm a very big book reader. But I have a lot of

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problems with a book where the man comes down from Mars and does. And I mean, it's so completely

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preposterous that I, and it's very common, even in mysteries in such well that he's just about

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to shoot him and somebody comes in the door. These are all questionable. I don't like books like that.

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I don't like books that are too explicit with sex. You know, everybody knows what sex is. If they go

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behind the door with two people, you can figure what's going to happen. And I don't like a necessary

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bad language, even though I must say I have a very foul mouth on occasion. But I also have grandchildren,

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which I don't read the one reading book with a lot of bad words. And so those are things that I've

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tried to put together. And hopefully, between it all, most important that it'll be entertaining.

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And it will like, it sounds like it would be so yep, brilliant. Okay, well listen, finally,

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Joe, your story obviously is an inspiration in itself. Okay, I speak to a lot of authors who are

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getting, who are quite amazed that they're writing their first novel at 60 or something or 50

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or whatever, you know, later on, not when they're young, right? So, I mean, what would you say to

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someone like that who's always wanted to write a book but believes that they've left it too late?

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Well, when I went into this old age home at my daughter's insistent, my business had been,

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I had sold my business to a company in China. And I had a worldwide business. And so it was very small.

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And I really had more time on my hands initially. And I began writing based on the time I had. I don't

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like being idle people say, why don't you retire? I go, what retire from life? What are you going to retire?

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I never had any interest in retiring. And so that was really the beginning of it. And then when I wrote

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the book, I written seven books, but when I began writing, I wondered, was it really good? And so we

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have a book called here and the old people read the book and they seemed to like the book. Although

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I was never truly impressed with the way they, I wasn't sure that they liked it. They said they did,

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but I want to get one back to that. It is real. So all of that went into my, decided to write a book.

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And then once I got involved with a publishing company and I had some interesting direction

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where I had to use information through dialogue as opposed to just writing lines and lines of

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copy. Then the idea was, I'm going to write, I want to write well. And I'm going to take this criticism

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to hard and do it. So it's the learning experience is interesting. The research I love. I learned so

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much with research. And I have an oddly enough at my age. I have a very good memory. But with all the,

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take the Second World War. I mean, I lived through the Second World or the Korean War, which I participated in.

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When you do research, you find things that you, there's so much to know and so difficult to get

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actual facts. And that all became part of an enjoyment for me as well as a task. And the result is

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the books that I'm writing. There will actually be two books published this year.

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So and I realized the artist thing about it is my age. I mean, nobody 92 years old,

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the reoboblishing books. First time author I'm talking to you. I won't, and don't forget,

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you're supposed to be dead as well, Joel. So I know. Exactly right.

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So oh my gosh, this is amazing. Well, listen, Joel, when you've got that next book,

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when that next book drops, then we need to talk again because you are just so fascinating. I mean

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that, right? And it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you today. So thank you,

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guys. No, it's a little, no, it's all on me. Listeners, viewers, treasure's location is an engaging

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blend of history as you've heard, mystery as you've heard and suspense. But your own journey to

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becoming a published author, if that's what you want to do is every bit as inspiring as the novel

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itself, Joel, honestly, the way that you've done this and the way that you've approached it in

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later life. So basically, thank you very much for joining me on author conversations this time.

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Great, yeah, but no, great stuff. And thank you for watching our listening, everybody.

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And don't forget, if you've enjoyed today's conversation, please like, subscribe and share the

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interview with fellow readers and lovers of great stories, be a pleasure. And hopefully we'll

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speak again soon. Take care. Bye bye, that. Bye bye.

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