Occult Detective Magazine #10
Goodness me – we made it to ten issues, and it’s all thanks to you. We say ten issues, but we’ve also put out various extra publications along the way. One of those, our first ODM Mythos Special, should be available right about now, with an intriguing range of tales drawing on aspects of Lovecraftian, Mythos and King in Yellow roots. Featuring new and reprint tales by some excellent well-known authors, you should have a look. It’s darned good stuff, and we have a second Mythos Special coming in a few months.
But back to Occult Detective Magazine #10, which you have before you. We are particularly pleased to shake things up a little this time by presenting no less than FOUR brand new substantial novelettes, along with the usual short stories and reviews. Without giving too much away, we have what we believe is one of our finest longer tales so far, a subtle and moving piece by Simon Avery which might well fit into any anthology of folk-horror stories. To complement this, we offer Joe Talon’s story of the popular Lorne Turner and a terrible past, John Paul Fitch’s very dark return of his ‘Anna and Turk’ characters, and a classic psychic investigation with a nasty core from Nancy Hansen, featuring Chandra Smoake.
As for our more ‘regular’ contents, we offer our usual wide-ranging selection of just what occult detectives, psychic investigators and those who dare to explore the abnatural can get up to. Naching Kassa brings us a first delightful tale of Lady Dahlia Battleroost and her less-than-normal butler, Robert Runté has an investigation at a distance in a time of viruses, and Mike Adamson digs deep into England’s Anglo-Saxon past.
Rhys Hughes, a master of wry humour, lets his investigator Nathan Gesture interpret chandeliers and tiramisu, Steven Philip Jones provides one of our rare werewolf stories but with a twist, and Michaele Jordan has a ‘powerless’ PI who nevertheless knows how to deal with the dirty side of magic. We also recommend our substantial non-fiction article by Maria DeBlassie, in which she looks at representation in this sub-genre.
We hope you enjoy the above, and that you stick with us for another ten issues — should your editors stay vaguely functional and/or sane that long…
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John Linwood Grant
John Linwood Grant lives in Yorkshire with a pack of lurchers and a beard. He may also have a family. When he's not chronicling the adventures of Mr Bubbles, the slightly psychotic pony, he writes a range of supernatural, horror and speculative tales, some of which are actually published. You can find him every week on greydogtales.com, often with his dogs.
Occult Detective Magazine
"The only magazine dedicated to exploring, extending, and even re-interpreting, the ‘occult detective’ genre. From inquisitive Shinto priests, through terrified French police officers, to South African witch-sniffers and American cyber-adepts, we present weird and horror fiction at its darkest — and sometimes at its most entertaining."
The publication changed its name from "Occult Detective Quarterly" in 2019
Occult Detective Magazine consists of eleven primary books, and includes two additional books that complement the series but are not considered mandatory reads and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of one more book. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
Related series Occult Detective Magazine Mythos Specials

