Giving Up the Ghosts: Short-Lived Occult Detective Series by Six Renowned Authors

Book excerpt: While Sherlock Holmes pooh-poohed the notion that the supernatural could invade our daily lives, not all fictional detectives have. There is a long history of literary sleuths who accept the reality of those supernatural intrusions in order to solve a case-be it a haunting or a crime. There are also characters who rely on their own supernatural abilities in their battle against lawbreakers. These are the occult detectives. Bram Stoker's Dr. Van Helsing, Ambrose Bierce's John Silence, William Hope Hodgson's Carnaki, and Seabury Quinn's Jules de Grandin are among the best remembered of the first wave of occult detectives. Their adventures were enough to fill books, though. Some of their colleagues lasted only for two, three, or four stories. These are the short-series occult detectives, and they come together here for the first time. Fitz-James O'Brien's Harry Escott, Gelett Burgess's Enoch Garrish, Algernon Blackwood's Jim Shorthouse, L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace's Diana Marburg, A.M. Burrage's Derek Scarpe, and Conrad Richter's Matson Bell unravel sixteen dark mysteries in this collection. Tim Prasil, who has re-written the history of this blending of mystery and supernatural fiction, introduces the book and each author/detective while supplying useful and interesting footnotes along the way. Giving Up the Ghosts belongs on the shelf of any occult-detective fiction connoisseur-or in the hands of readers eager to discover this exciting cross-genre.