‘This is not an easy treasure hunt’: puzzle book offers readers chance to win €750,000 golden casket

For all the armchair puzzlers for whom sudokus and crosswords have palled over the long months of lockdown, a fiendish new literary conundrum is about to slide on to bookshelves – with a rather lucrative and unusual reward.

Artist Michel Becker tracked down and bought the golden casket given to France by England ahead of the signing of the entente cordiale on 8 April 1904, which attempted to end centuries of antagonism between the two countries. Presented to French president Émile Loubet in July 1903,