The occult detective has his or her beginnings in the Gothic. As Edgar Allan Poe created the amateur detective, the Mystery story, the Locked Room Mystery (all in one story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”) he also gave us the detective who faces the unknown. For Poe, there was a logical explanation, but he got writers like J. Sheridan Le Fanu and Algernon Blackwood on the right path. The man of Science who faces the supernatural. The sub-genre of Horror fiction can play things either way: the ghosts are real or they are all fake. Either way, we wonder until the tale is over which we have. Not everyone is a fan of both types of tales (M. R. James disliked the ghost story that trailed off into a reasonable ending, for instance.) Other writers, like John Dickson Carr, made a career of it.
(1872) The Psychic Doctors: The First Ghostbreakers
(1887) Sherlock Holmes: The Reluctant Investigator
(1894) The Horror of Studley Grange
(1905) The Ghost Hunters: Hargreaves & Sargent
(1909) Ghosts & Laughs: Comedians as Ghostbreakers
(1909) The Freelance Ghostbreaker: John Silence
(1913) The Case of the Ghost-Finder: Carnacki
(1920) The Case of the Dream Detective: Moris Klaw
(1922) The Missing Miss Martendale
(1923) Otis Adelbert Kline’s Doctor Dorp
(1925) Jules de Grandin, Superstar Part 1
(1925) Jules de Grandin, Superstar Part 2
(1925) The Cases of Jules de Grandin 1
(1926) The Cases of Jules de Grandin 2
(1926) The Cases of Jules de Grandin 3
(1926) The Curse of Jules de Grandin: Pierre D’Artois
(1927) The Cases of Jules de Grandin 4
(1927) The Cases of Jules de Grandin 5
(1927) The Cases of Jules de Grandin 6
(1927) “The Tomb of Sarah” and Seabury Quinn
(1930) Captain Meek and Dr. Bird
(1931) Mason Bell, The Ghost Cop
(1935) Father Brown Goes Mythos
(1935) While You Wait (For Superman): Dr. Occult
(1936) The Door Into Infinity: Mythos Without Lovecraft
(1937) On the Trail of Lonesome Ghosts
(1941) The Ghost on Lonesome Hill
(1942) Neils Orson the Ghost Hunter
(1943) The Last Case of Jules deGrandjerque
(1945) One-Shot Occult Detectives
(1945) Dr. Styx: First Mythos Comic
(1944) Fredric Brown’s The Ghost Breakers
(1947) The Darker Drink: Pseudonymous Saint
(1947) Let’s Haunt a House: Young Ghostbreakers
(1947) Johnny Peril, Occult Adventurer
(1956) The Case of the Hungry Ghost
(1959) Mike Shayne’s Weirdest Case
(1968) Neal Adams and The House of Mystery Covers
(1972) Donald F. Glut: The Doctor Spektor Interview
(1973) Supernatural Sherlock I
(1973) Supernatural Sherlock II
(1973) The Casebook of Lucius Leffing
(1980) The Attleborough Poltergeist
(1997) Monsters Chasing Monsters
(2003) An Interview With Jack Passarella
Can Occult Detectives Actually Be Scary 1?
Can Occult Detectives Actually Be Scary 2?
Christmas Ghosts: Occult Detectives
Elliott O’Donnell: Ghost Hunter and Author
Is That an Occult Detective Story?
The Last Seance: Horror in the Mysteries of Agatha Christie
Lord Baltimore, A Confessional
Mesmerists and Mind-Controllers
Ten Little Known Ghostbreaker Facts
Who Was the First Ghostbreaker? A Conversation with Christopher Lyons