‘Occult Detective Quarterly Presents’

I’ll be posting on Occult Detective Quarterly, started and published by the late Sam Gafford‘s Ulthar Press, which continues as Occult Detective Magazine from Cathaven Press sometime Real Soon Now. But in the meantime.

In 2018, in-between issues #4 and #5, they put out a large trade paperback, Occult Detective Quarterly Presents with longer stories than could fit in the magazine. Most of the contributors have appeared in the magazine, in a few cases using their characters that appeared in shorter stories.

These stories run the gamut of the types of “occult detectives.” There are eight stories plus an article, with interior artwork and clocking in at 400 pages.

Here we get the following:

Amanda DeWees kicks things off with “Her Silks and Fine Array,” a gothic Victorian ghost story. It stars a young English actress, Sybil Ingram, recently married, who is asked by an old friend to help with a haunted house. She has the ability to “speak” with spirits when the ghost of her mother-in-law visits her to get her murder solved. This is more along the lines of a ghost with unfinished matters that need to be put to rest. I know the author has written a novel starring this character. I’m not sure if there are other works with this character.

Willie Meikle may be best known to some for writing many new stories with the classic occult detective Carnacki, as well as other works. But in “Farside,” we get the PI as occult detective, set in modern-day Scotland. Derrick Adam is asked to help a woman being stalked. through mirrors. By someone who is dead.

“A Shadow Against the Stars,” by Charles R. Rutledge, is an interesting tale set in modern-day Georgia. We get a policewoman working with a, yes, 12,000-year-old barbarian monster hunter (that’s really more his job than an occult detective) named Kharrn, who has worked together before. The policewoman was on a stakeout with her detective partner when their suspect was dropped on their car hood. Literally. From a great height. So she very much needs Kharrn’s help. I don’t know if more stories of this character have appeared, but I would love to see them.

A very different tale is “Lazarus Come Forth,” by Robert Pohle, which is set in ancient Palestine during the Roman period, utilizing biblical characters, which hopefully was clear by the title. Not quite your traditional occult detective story, for some reason this one didn’t work for me.

Ed Erdelac‘s John Conquer stars, of course, in “Conquer Comes Correct.” We’ve gotten several short stories of this character in issues of ODQ/ODM, a black occult detective set in ’70s New York. I kind of think of it as “Shaft as an occult detective.” Here we learn of John’s early life in Harlem when someone tells him of the recent murder of a co-founder of the gang he was in. There is also a dead and decapitated gorilla, which leads to a violent confrontation.

“Mrs. Lillicrop Investigates” introduces us, I believe, to Bev Allen‘s mysterious lady occult detective Mrs. Lillicrop (no first name is given). This one is done in the style of a British social humor story, when a young lady returns home to her upper-class family with an unexpected fiancé and strange goings-on. A medium, who may or may not have some actual abilities, leads the lady of the house to call in Mrs. Lillicrop. She puts an end to it all, but it’s revealed to us there is much, much more going on than others expected. Her second story is in the free ODM #0 issue, and follows this one. Hopefully, there will be more.

“Ritual Killings” by S.L. Edwards is another of his tales with Joe Bartred and his family which has appeared in ODQ/ODM. In particular, his youngest daughter who accompanies him on a trip to contemporary L.A., though in a world where magic is there if you know where to look, like vampires, old gods, fairies, etc. Here Joe is there to solve some killings of girls brought in by a movie studio that wishes things are kept quiet. So we delve into this world to solve the mystery.

Adrian Cole‘s Nick Nightmare is the star of “At Midnight All the Agents.” This is more occult detective from pulps and comicbooks in a different parallel universe. While I enjoy this series, I find it more comicbookish than pulpish. I look forward to further stories, but strangely it appears his current collections aren’t available on Amazon anymore. I’m not sure what’s going on.

We also get a revised version of Mike Ashley‘s article “Fighters of Fear,” which gives a good overview of the genre. This article would be later reprinted and revised for the Fighters of Fear (2020) collection that Ashley edited (just 630 pages or so!). I hope to get a review of this and several other occult detective anthologies Real Soon Now.

It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. If you enjoyed this collection then you should get the issues of Occult Detective Quarterly (#1-5) and Occult Detective Magazine (#6-9), all available on Amazon, and which will have an issue #10 soon.