Fool's Paradise — Robert E. Ferguson

Fool's Paradise is a blend of real events; fiction; fantasy; mystery and incredible adventures that tells the life story of Bobby Ferguson aka: Bobby McAllister, from early childhood and a near-death experience that delusionally introduces him to a spectral pirate who tells him about the mythical treasure ship, "The Prize." As if one ghost in his life is not enough, a teenage McAllister meets an apparitional woman who not only re-enforces his belief in the existence of The Prize but; convinces him of his destiny to locate the mysterious ship. Working for a corrupted politician; a stint as a producer for a television station, his chance meeting of an established and world-famous treasure hunter, and even a stretch in an Arizona prison, all combine to put him out to sea in search of The Hacha del Oro, a documented treasure ship that went down in a mighty hurricane off the coast of the Florida Keys over 250 years ago. In spite of all the adversity involved, McAllister's experience on the Hacha Project proves to be successful and he confides to Granger Lawton, his true quest is "The Prize," a treasure he fully expects the reluctant and leery Lawton to help him find. Determined to act as McAllister's Devils' advocate, Lawton agrees to help in the search of The Prize. Their investigation takes them to Seville, Spain, the home of the Archives of the Indies, and perhaps, wherein lays the answers to the unsolved two-hundred and fifty-year old mystery. While touring the Spanish countryside, McAllister comes across a dusty and deserted old mansion that contains one-hundred year old evidence of the identity of the haunting apparition that has been McAllister's obsession since his teen-age years. The portrait of a beautiful woman distracts his pursuit of The Prize and sends him on what Lawton characterized as a "wild-goose-chase" up the Oronoco River in Venezuela. On a regal, yet struggling cattle ranch outside Ciudad, Bolivar, a gentleman rancher, whose daughter steals McAllister's heart, entertains McAllister, and Lawton. It is Lawton who stumbles on evidence of not only the existence of the The Prize, but its actual location. It takes McAllister, however, to finally locate the cargo she carried by carefully piecing together all of the clues, evidence, cryptic conditions of the island priestess, and even the phantoms of his past to lead him to the treasure...