Stay out of the swamp

Our two spookiest states are Maine and Louisiana. Maine has the creepy fog covered craggy coasts where you just know a lizard creature is waiting to pull you into the depths. Then there are the forests, the people with the crazy accents and the Stephen King and Lovecraft stories. Louisiana has the dank bayous filled with gators, snakes and all manner of bugs and is a bad place to hold National Guard exercises. Let's not forget the voodoo, the crazy accents, the drive through bars and the fact that the sea is swallowing the Delta. Louisiana though doesn't quite have the horror story base that Maine does.

Deborah LeBlanc is doing her part to fill in the gap. She has written four novels set in the creepy backwoods and waters of the Sportsmen's Paradise and the latest is Water Witch. A water witch is someone gifted in the ways of dowsing, or finding water. Dunny Pollock, born with an extra finger, can find all manner of objects including missing people. Living in Texas, her sister summons her to the Lousiana bayous to find two missing children. She does go but then has to confront evil forces unleashed by a poorly performed native American ritual.

The book has lots of bloody violence, the supernatural and children in peril. It also is steeped in the local culture, which LeBlanc apparently knows well. Here's to LeBlanc for making Lousiana a place more likely to give me nightmares.