Drifting silently on the water about forty nautical miles off the Texas coast, Charlie Sweetwater sits aboard his boat, alone with his thoughts, when from the darkness he hears a man swimming toward him. But not just any man. His name is Julien Dufay, the wealthy French scion of a family-owned petrochemical dynasty headquartered in Houston. Charlie plucks the exhausted Frenchman from the Gulf of Mexico and delivers him back to his rarified world. But of course, no good deed ever goes unpunished. As Charlie is drawn deeper into Julien’s erratic orbit, he discovers a man possessed. Dufay is consumed by his vision of discovering the site of Fort Saint Louis: the famed—and doomed—17th century settlement of French explorer, Robert Cavelier de La Salle. Thanks to Julien, and his own restless curiosity, Charlie is pulled into a web of obsession, murder and greed. Julien wants to find La Salle’s long-lost colony (and the treasure of artifacts buried with it) as a legacy for himself, his family and the greater glory of France. But the project’s ambitious sponsor, Jean-Marc Dufay, is hell-bent on getting at the rich natural gas resources hidden beneath the site, even if it means using his own brother as a pawn to feed his ambitions. Standing in the way is the stubborn old man on whose South Texas ranch Julien and Jean-Marc are converging, along with his trio of scurrilous sons, who have their own covert agenda—an agenda that can be lethal to outsiders. Charlie struggles to make sense of it all, with the help of the beautiful marine archeologist who is excavating La Salle’s shipwreck La Belle in nearby Matagorda Bay. But as he digs deeper into Julien Dufay’s danger-fraught quest, he discovers that history has a way of repeating itself, and that some ghosts just won't stay buried.

Late at night, drifting alone on the Gulf of Mexico, Charlie Sweetwater sits aboard his boat, alone with his thoughts, when from the darkness he hears a man swimming toward him from the middle of nowhere. But not just any man. His name is Julien Dufay, the wealthy French scion of a family-owned petrochemical dynasty headquartered in Houston. Charlie saves the man's life, but, of course, no good deed ever goes unpunished. As Charlie is drawn deeper into Julien's erratic orbit, he discovers a man possessed. Dufay is consumed by his vision of discovering the site of Fort Saint Louis, the famed--and doomed--17th century settlement of French explorer, Robert Cavelier de La Salle. Thanks to Julien, and his own restless curiosity, Charlie is pulled into a web of obsession, murder, danger and greed. Julien wants to find the long-lost colony (and the treasure of artifacts buried with it) as a legacy for himself, his family and the greater glory of France. But the project's ambitious sponsor, Jean-Marc Dufay, is hell-bent on getting at the rich natural gas resources hidden beneath the site, and will think nothing of using his own brother as a pawn to feed his ambitions. Standing in the way is the stubborn old man on whose South Texas ranch Julien and Jean-Marc are converging, along with the rancher's trio of scurrilous sons, who have their own covert agenda--an agenda that can be lethal to outsiders. Charlie struggles to make sense of it all, with the help of the beautiful marine archeologist who is excavating La Salle's shipwreck La Belle in nearby Matagorda Bay. But as he digs deeper into Julien Dufay's danger-fraught quest, he discovers that history has a way of repeating itself, and that some ghosts just won't stay buried.

History, travelogue, and memoir combine in this illuminating journey in the footsteps of the great explorer La Salle. This is the extraordinary account of a personal and historical quest in which Philip Marchand retraces the seventeenth-century explorations of La Salle while he searches in the present day for vestiges of France’s lost North American legacy. After he explored the Great Lakes and the entire Mississippi, La Salle was murdered by his own men when he led them on a disastrous mission to Texas. The vast land beyond Quebec that he claimed for France could have become — but for a few twists of history — an alternative North America: a French-speaking, Catholic empire in which native peoples would have played a prominent role. Marchand probes the intriguingly flawed character of La Salle and recounts the astonishing history of the Jesuit missionaries, coureurs de bois, fur traders, and soldiers who followed on his heels, and of the Indian nations with whom they came into contact. He also reports on the survivals of this diaspora from late-night bars, battle reenactments, parish churches, and wayside restaurants from Montreal to Venice, Louisiana. And throughout he draws on memories of his own Catholic childhood in Massachusetts to interpret the lingering attitudes, fears, hopes, and iconography of a people who, more deeply than most, feel the burdens and the ironies of history.

This work describes the ideological, intellectual, and literary role of ghost stories in late Renaissance France. It takes in prominent literary figures as well as lesser known tracts and pamphlets to shed light on the beliefs, fears, and desires of a period on the threshold of modernity.

The western New York state Great Lakes region serves as a scenic setting for supernatural traditions, incidences, and folklore. Avenging specters, demon-tortured roads, holy miracles, weird psychic events, prehistoric power sites, ancient curses, Native American shamans, active battlefields, ghost ships, black dogs, haunted monuments, and the phantoms of Rochester’s famous—all are part of the legacy of Rochester and the lower Genesee. Supernatural historian Mason Winfield and the research team from Haunted History Ghost Walks, Inc., take us on a spiritual safari through the Seneca homeland of the “Sweet River Valley” and the modern city in its place. After their survey of Rochester’s super natural history and tradition, “the Flour City” will never look the same. Includes photos!

The Ghost Hunter's Field Guide features over 1,000 haunted places around the country in all fifty states that you can investigate yourself. Experience ghostly activity at battlefields, theaters, saloons, hotels, museums, resorts, parks, and other spooky sites—all of which are completely safe and accessible. From Alabama to Wyoming, you'll find out where to go to glimpse the unquiet spirits of Civil War soldiers, plantation slaves, criminals, and other entities. This alphabetized reference guide features over 100 photos and, for each location, includes the fascinating tales behind the haunting. Flip to your state to see what kind of paranormal phenomena commonly occur at each site: apparitions, shadow shapes, phantom sounds and scents, residual hauntings, psychokinetic activity, and more. Ford's Theatre The Whaley House Museum The Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast Alcatraz Island The Queen Mary The Bell Witch Cave