Place Called Dagon

In the shadowed villages of New England, where white steeples pierce grey skies and whispered prayers mask older, darker devotions, an ancient evil endures. A cult of witchcraft, its roots plunging deep into the colonial past, continues its terrible rites in hidden valleys, waiting for the moment to claim new sacrifices. When a young man and woman find themselves drawn into this web of ancient ritual, they discover that the toils of the cult are not easily escaped and that the gods worshipped in secret places have long memories. Herbert Gorman's 1927 novel moves through the fog-shrouded hills of New England like a fever dream, blending Gothic atmosphere with the urgent pulse of young love threatened by something far older than any family feud or social custom. The cult's descent from early witchcraft days gives their practices the weight of tradition, the seduction of forbidden knowledge, and the horror of rituals that have been perfected across centuries. What begins as a strange and unsettling romance becomes a descent into darkness where the boundary between the modern world and the ancient world grows thin. For readers who crave atmospheric horror that whispers rather than shouts, who find terror in the suggestion that ordinary places hide extraordinary evils, this novel offers a chilling portrait of what endures beneath the surface of small-town America.