Kurtz of Goat Island

Kurtz of Goat Island by Douglas E. Pike Synopsis Pirate captain William Kidd's treasure, buried on Goat Island, off the coast of Maine, has eluded discovery for over three centuries. Harold Kurtz, driven to find it, is owner of one half of the island. He is being funded by cable TV's ultra-aggressive Pulse Network, which is extremely disappointed with the program's second-season ratings. Harold, secretly on the verge of bankruptcy, needs the network's cash, but is ill-suited to lead the search due to his managerial incompetence. Suspected acts of sabotage and disharmony among his team members are further impediments to the search's success. Kurtz, proud father of single, college-dropout daughter, Mindy, does the one thing any loving father would do under similar circumstances—he dumps the entire catastrophic project into her lap! Inexperienced, no-nonsense Mindy's solution is to hire renown archaeologist Hank Flynn, by virtue of his lauded professional expertise, as well as his dashing good looks, not knowing he is married to a highly suspicious wife. Mindy's plan also includes acquiring “Archie,” a state-of-the-art archaeological robot who she intends to pit against an existing, Cockney-speaking team member, in an effort to spark productivity. Her well laid plans are disrupted when Flynn, en route to Goat Island, is abducted by the Anunnaki, laughingly flawed god-like aliens who have their own urgent mission there. They program Flynn and use him in their search for an object of great importance to their queen, hindering his ability to help the Kurtzes. One final complication to raise the temperature of the search for Kidd's treasure to the boiling point, is the owner of the other half of the island: Boris Franklin, a radical environmentalist hell bent on disrupting the Kurtz's operation. The comical, kaleidoscopic interactions of these discordant characters over a period of a few turbulent days results in a conclusion none of them anticipates.