An ongoing saga about the Devil and a coven of witches and demons.
Satan is back and out for blood. Crestwood Lake is a small, secluded town in the woods of northern Vermont—and an epicenter of evil. Colonized in 1693, in the aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials, Crestwood Lake has been battling the dark forces since its inception. Lucifer intends to reclaim the tortured community and establish a hell on Earth. With a renewed coven of ruthless witches and demons, he is prepared to unleash his vengeance.
Opposing Lucifer once again, is police chief Butch Morgan, this time assisted by a secret society of demonologists, and mysterious supernatural forces. In a saga spanning four centuries and two continents, the balance of power between heaven and hell will be decided in Crestwood Lake.
Excerpt
EXCERPT FROM CRESTWOOD LAKE 2 SATAN'S REVENGE:
Then, another figure emerged from the hallway. A tall, elderly gentleman, in a black three-piece suit, with a flaming-red tie and pocket square. He stepped around us and stood over me, the tips of his black oxfords just inches from my left shoulder. It was him as well! The same face I saw coming at me in my childhood bedroom, with large, almost black eyes, boring through mine. I was so aghast—I couldn’t even begin to comprehend what was happening.
“Good evening, Peter,” he bellowed.
I was frozen in fright.
He turned toward the man on top of me and said, “Let him speak, Stan.”
Stan eased his grip on my throat, but still wielded the knife as if he were about to strike.
“Who are you?” I whined.
“I am Luther Van Haden.”
“How do you know me?”
“I’ve been following you your entire life.”
“What? Why? How?”
“Sorry about your marriage, but Jeff and I had a deal. Business is business—nothing personal, mind you.”
“Who are you?”
“Who am I? I can be your best friend, or your worst nightmare. In fact—it is you who will decide what I will mean to you.”
Professional Reviews
Crestwood Lake
Crestwood Lake
Mark R. Vogel
April 12, 2015
Reviewed by Tim Potter
Crestwood Lake, the debut novel from Mark R. Vogel, is an impressive effort for a first time novelist. It is, at the same time, a unique take on horror fiction and an exploration of classic horror themes. Crestwood Lake is not only the setting of the tale but it’s main character, the different locales and characters part of a living and breathing whole. Due to the plot structure, which incorporates what are essentially short stories into a novel, the pacing is a bit uneven, but when the narrative focuses in the later stages of the book there’s no stopping reading until the climactic battle is finished.
The town of Crestwood Lake is located in New England, its roots dating back to colonial days and notorious Witch Trials of pre-United States America. The hauntings and horrors of the novel can be traced to the Puritan settlers who left Salem after its famous trials were ended. The legacies of those intolerant days manifest in contemporary times in the form of witches, demons and possibly Lucifer himself. The early stages of the book are told through different first-person narratives, often from the point-of-view of doomed characters. This adds an interesting element of peril to the story, as the first-person usually indicates a character has survived the tale, but here the reader never knows.
The idea of Crestwood Lake as the main character of the story is its most interesting and successful element. The different locations throughout the city, from the diner and local bar, to the church, wine store, individual houses and the lake itself are vividly rendered and clear in the mind’s eye. There are excellent specific characters, as well, though just a few get a full backstory and personality. The stories that diverge from the main plot deal with characters that are, typically, only present in the story for the short term, and by necessity, there’s isn’t a lot to those characters.
The main characters are interesting and sympathetic and well worth investing in. Captain of the local police, Butch Morgan, is an interesting blend of old-school tough guy cop and an empathetic, caring defender of his town. His friend and local historian Gil is a fun character: a retired writer and teacher and inveterate skirt-chaser. The two characters play off of each other extremely well, almost seeming to have the rapport of loving but always bickering long married couple. Potential love interest Vicki and the villain Van Haden are similarly strong characters that make interesting acrs through the novel.
Though the short story asides are not as strong as the main story, they don’t lose the reader’s attention. They may drift a bit but they are strong individual tales and, when the story comes fully together, do serve in setting up a strong horror tale. From haunted houses to escaped mental patients, witches to demons to the devil, Crestwood Lake is a classic horror story with modern sensibilities that has a little something for just about any reader.
The Ripper's Time
THE RIPPER'S TIME: A review, and interview by David Green, Ripperologist Magazine, February 2017
Time travel frequently crops up in Jack the Ripper fiction. Often it is Jack himself who travels back and forth in time, killing in different decades or centuries; sometimes it is a homicide detective or a descendant of one of the victims who jaunts back to 1888 to pursue the Ripper and put a stop to his deadly activities. There’s always room, I feel, for one more Jack the Ripper time travel yarn, especially if it combines an instinct for character and story with authentic period scenery and a relish for the intimate details of real history. Author Mark R. Vogel uses time travel to great effect in his novel The Ripper’s Time. He has produced an exciting page-turner that is also a meditation on love and death, and a powerful imagining of a life lost and reclaimed. It tells the story of Henry Willows, a history professor and Ripper scholar from 21st century New Jersey, who travels back in time to try and prevent Catherine Eddowes from being murdered. It’s not really a science fantasy novel, although it makes use of some of the tropes and conventions of time travel fiction. It’s more of a love story and a historical murder mystery. Yet it’s a mark of the author’s skill as a writer that to begin with I wasn’t entirely sure if I was reading a love story or a case study in obsession and abnormal sexual desire. The professor’s infatuation with Catherine Eddowes and his adamant pursuit of her through time and space comes across a lot like stalking. While the science underpinning time travel isn’t explored in any detail, the novel is nevertheless attuned to the paradoxes thrown up by the idea of meddling with the past. If Catherine is saved, might other women die in her place? Mark Vogel has great fun with the concept of the Ripper scholar abroad in 1880s London. Willows savours the city and its suburbs with the elation and curiosity of a tourist: he visits Tower Bridge (under construction in 1888) and he passes New Scotland Yard where he knows a torso will be found several months hence. He takes Catherine on a shopping extravaganza, and they go to the Prince of Wales Theatre to see the comic opera Dorothy. The book brims with these kinds of loving inconsequential details. And the novel captures superbly the sense of joy and giddy estrangement at being alive in the historical past. The time travel elements are actually quite unobtrusive and (paradoxically) they work to enhance the believability of the tale rather than distracting from it. The book is at its most affecting in its quiet, rueful moments, when the author dwells on the wonder of small shared things that bring Henry and Catherine together. There are many intimate and unsettling moments: He found Catherine sprawled on the bed in her undergarments, surrounded by his Jack the Ripper books. Two of them were opened to the chapter on her. One displayed her mortuary photographs. “Darling, are you all right?” “I don’t know what I am. I’ve never read about me death before. And these horrible pictures.” The Ripper’s Time is a fast-moving, tightly-plotted story set against a well-researched and convincing historical background. It alternates elegantly between moments of fear and terror and melancholy observations on life and the passage of time. But it’s also great fun to read: the book’s rife with escapist pleasures ‒ tense situations, action- packed drama, moments of farce and black comedy, lots of unexpected twists and turns, as well as grim excursions into the dark recesses of the human mind.
Did you ever wonder what happened after the Archangel Michael through the demons out of heaven? Let one of them guide you through the origin of evil in the world.
Chris has been fostered at the Crowley boot camp since he turned seven. At sixteen, he is finally ready to run away because his foster father is an abusive person who works Chris and the other children to the point of exhaustion. All he has left of h
