Ralph E Vaughan

Everyone in Ashford stays out of Red Cap Woods and avoids the megaliths called the Goblins' Playground. If dark elves don't wash their caps in your blood, you might run into the Lord of the Woods, never a good thing. When ne'er-do-well Allan Cutter staggers into the snug bar of the Three Crowns and dies, no one is surprised. After all, he took up residence in that abandoned caravan deep in the heart of darkness, didn't he? And everyone nods knowingly...

The long-abandoned Stryker Farm was a cursed place, and everyone in Knight's Crossing shunned it, even the village's most potent magicians.Young Dale Stryker butchered his entire family, including the fearsome Wizard Ezekiel, then vanished. Thirty years later, a lost boy opens a cold case considered closed. DCI Ravyn and DS Stark find themselves searching for a long-hidden foe in a secretive village wary of strangers, where magic, both light and dark,...

Some in Midriven Village claim schoolgirl Lisa Martin ran off with a boy, but most know she strayed too close to Robbers Wood, perhaps even went in, the silly thing, and got took by the Beast. But the world has no room for monsters, except human ones, so DCI Arthur Ravyn and DS Leo Stark come to investigate. A fool's quest, the old folk know. The Elder Gods never give back what they take. The detectives themselves might perish. After all, this is...

Whenever a new tomb emerges, from the sands or a papyrus scroll is translated, Egypt's history is rewritten, becoming more enigmatic and mysterious. Old, comfortable interpretations are swept away, supplanted by strange realities and new cosmic visions. In these essays is revealed an Egypt that is familiar, yet alien, as relatable as it is unfathomable. (Note: a version of this book was previously published as Reflections on Elder Egypt.)

Beyond London's Baker Street is a world of shadows, a world of ancient secrets and elder beings that were old before Man first appeared. At times, those eldritch entities reach from the past into the present, looming over us like a shadow out of time. Few can counter the horror of their presence with cold logic, with nerves that will not snap, with the adaptive cunning needed to survive when reality seems subsumed by madness. Sherlock Holmes is such...

Mere minutes from landing on Enceladus, sixth largest satellite of Saturn, a massive explosion shakes the Musk Venture, causing the exploration ship to veer off course and crash into the "ice shell" moon's sea. Out of forty, five survive, but they will not survive long unless they reach Supply Cache Alpha, where stores were deposited a year earlier by a robotic probe. Between them and safety lies a world filled with unknown perils, but the greatest...

Sherlock Holmes vs creatures from HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos in two tales. In disguise and thought dead after his battle with Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes is stranded in a strange Italian village with a deadly secret in "The Adventure of the Abominable Inn."The rationality of Holmes, the monsters of HP Lovecraft and the dry British humor of PG Wodehouse collide in "London After Midnight."A gallery of Lovecraftian art is included as an appendix....

A collection of tales (1970-2010) spanning four decades of writing for the small press -- mystery, science fiction, fantasy, horror, Cthulhu Mythos and historical. Selected from the more than 300 stories published by this noted genre writer.

Upon Sherlock Holmes' return to London after the Great Hiatus, he thwarted the murderous plans of Colonel Sebastian Moran, but what happened after that? Here, for the first time, learn what really drew Holmes back to London, the truth about the strange Vanishments and the East End Ghosts, and how the entirety of Time & Space was contained in a single night. In other stories, we learn exactly what Mrs Hudson's life was like with the most troublesome...