The Official Website of
John Derhak
Author of
Tales from the moe.Republic &
The Bones of Lazarus
 
The Return of
Mr. Poole
One summer's eve, a man awakes in the midst of a cemetery … against a headstone … over a freshly turned grave.
 
He is utterly alone, yet, he fears, in the presence of something. With no recollection of how he arrived there, he rushes off into the night, and, inexplicably, walks into his own past.
 
Encountering lives he had long forgotten, he is drawn into a mysterious, ghostly, spirit world--one of reflection, redemption, and unshakable tragedy--pushing him inexorably to a destination, ominous and foreboding-and a reckoning that awaits him there-with an unrelenting evil.
 
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Other Works by John Derhak
 
A 2,000-year-old legend — Political Intrigue, Mystery, Betrayal, Murder

John Derhak's imaginative, darkly funny, supernatural thriller. An engaging, purely pulp, genuine page-turner.

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Signed First Edition
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Tales from the moe.Republic

The Surprisingly Imaginative, Critically Acclaimed, & Hilarious Debut Novel
by John Derhak
 
 
The story of a small town inn, a bungling innkeeper, unforgettable characters, mystery, mayhem, and misadventure in rural Maine -- one very good book.
featuring orginal cover art
by moe. guitarist Chuck Garvey
 
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The 2008 Winner & Recipient of the Golden Ghoul Medal for Best Short Story
 Howlin Minnie
The Witch of the Wailing Wood
Special Kindle Edition $1.95
With a new afterword

Deep in the forest, beyond the northern slopes of the Old Mountain by the Sea, upon the far edge of the Lost Kingdom of Moose Harbor, stretches a dark, mysterious tract of land known by those who know no better, and better known by those who do, as the Wailing Wood. For more generations than remembered superstition has held that the old-growth forest is enchanted by a witch—a witch that came to be in a dark time. At nightfall, it is said, the woods come to life, haunted by evil spirits under her spell. Locals believe that none shall pass through her woods after sunset—and live to tell about it—for no one ever has.

Howlin' Minnie, The Witch of the Wailing Wood
 
 
 
The moe.Republic's
Halloween Storytellers Contest
The 2013 Winner & Recipient of the Golden Ghoul Medal for Best Short Story
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The Return of  Mr. Poole
 
© John Derhak, 2013
Moose Harbor Books
Cover art by Robert J. Derhak
 
 
 
 
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The Return of Mr. Poole is now Available on
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About the Author
     We know P. Gibson Bagwell is an archaeologist and occasional explorer, as well as a central character in John Derhak's book, The Bones of Lazarus.
     Born and raised in the Lost Kingdom of Moose Harbor, Mr. Bagwell is the son of Charles, and the late Caroline (Pruitt) Bagwell, and the great-nephew and namesake of the famed author, athlete, and inventor of the finger, "The Bird Man," Porter Gibson Digit. He has taught at the University of Maine-Farmington, Bowdoin College, and several years abroad as a visiting instructor in Hungary and the Czech Republic. His research has taken him to Cyprus, Tangiers, Central Europe, Peru, and most recently, the Caribbean Island of Saint George. He is author of Meditations on Aquincum: Origins of Budapest and The Walls of Sacsayhuamán: Peru as a Cradle of Civilization. A paper, "We Have All Been Here Before: the Bosnian Pyramid Mystery," appeared in the journal, Dig This. A new book, Lazarus: Man, Myth, or the Original Frankenstein Monster, is set for publication on 1 April.
     "The Return of Mr. Poole," is Professor Bagwell's first foray in the genre of fiction. The story, he explained, was inspired by "a concurrence of events" over the previous 2 years. First, a research trip to the Island of Saint George landed him in the middle of a civil war, where he was seriously wounded in an ambush. That near death experience, he said, led him through a period of reflection on the nature of evil-and its many manifestations. Then, during his post-recovery, he journeyed to the primeval forest near Gulf Hagas, deep in the Woods of Maine. What Professor Bagwell can only describe as "a deeply spiritual place fit for a deeply spiritual experience." While there, he conceived of a life beyond the frontier, a place "far on the other side," a phrase the native Abnaki summed up in one word: Matagamon.
     But it was a casual walk through town last summer that brought the story to these pages. "As I walked the streets and strolled through familiar neighborhoods," he recalled. "As I'd pass a particular house, I began to remember the families who had lived in them once upon a time. I began to think about their trials and tribulations, their fortunes and frailties, and sadly, the tragedies that befell an unfortunate few. Everything that had happened to me in the past few years just came together, expressed itself, in this story, right then and there."
     Our panel of judges agreed. Everything in this story did come together. "The Return of Mr. Poole," is a haunting, bone chilling, psychological thriller, and worthy of this year's awarding of the Golden Ghoul Medal.

The Halloween Storytellers Contest is an annual short story contest held at the moe.Republic Hotel, in the Heart of the Lost Kingdom of Moose Harbor. Authors submit their stories to the hotel. Our esteemed panel of judges, mad dogs, and derelicts, then read and vote on their favorite. The winner is awarded the Golden Ghoul Medal and their story is published on this, the moe.Republic's, website.
 
Our first winning story can be read here, gratis:
That Winged Thing
It originally appeared in Tales from the moe.Republic
Damn Chinese counter!