Weird Detectives

Weird Tales magazine is known for launching a number of sub-genres of fiction—cosmic horror, swords & sorcery, dark fantasy, and others. It has also greatly added to existing genres like science fiction, horror, and—a personal favorite of editor Jonathan Maberry—weird mystery stories. Or, as they became known—occult detective tales.

Today the names of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith, all regular contributors to the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the first half of the twentieth century, are recognizable even to casual readers of the bizarre and fantastic. And yet despite being more popular than them all during the golden era of genre pulp fiction, there is another author whose name and work have fallen into obscurity: Seabury Quinn. The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin collects all ninety-three published works featuring the supernatural detective Dr. Jules de Grandin.

A small town in coastal Maine is shaken to its core by a serial killer in this crime novel from Peter Nichols, bestselling author of The Rocks In scenic Granite Harbor, life has continued on—quiet and serene—for decades. That is until a local teenager is found brutally murdered in the...

Completed Trilogy In an alternate America where gods walk among mortals and magic crackles through the streets of Five Cities, Romeo Moon is a detective with a problem: he's desperately in love with a villain. Romeo works for the Poe Detective Agency, the only law enforcement that spans from the Madlands to New York City. Julia Ford works for Bloody Bill, the most notorious crime lord in South City. They know their love is impossible—a romance as doomed as their Shakespearean namesakes—but they can't stay away from each other. When Satan himself kidnaps the three Fate sisters to rewrite...

Some witches ride brooms, wear pointy hats, and have warty noses. Others come disguised as soul mates. A fortune teller predicts Augie will soon meet a green-eyed beauty with a crescent-moon tattoo. Best yet, she’s his soul mate. Or maybe that’s not so great since he already has a wonderful girlfriend who lives with him and his father. Breaking up with her is out of the question. When the new girl shows up to school, she’s everything the psychic predicted and more. Is it his fault if he falls for the girl the universe picked out for him? Sure, she’s got a mean streak and turns his ...

Napoleon Nightshade is back. And this time the horror has learned how to read a balance sheet. When an insurance executive brings him a spreadsheet listing six hundred and eleven deaths scheduled for the same night three weeks from now, Nightshade thinks it’s a glitch. It isn’t. It’s a portfolio. In the flooded wards known as the Sloughs, a dying dam is about to become the payout date on a futures contract written in human souls. Someone bought the tragedy cheap, four years early, and has been patiently holding the position. The paperwork is perfect. The consent was forged. And the ...

Before the Baudelaires became orphans, before he encountered A Series of Unfortunate Events, even before the invention of Netflix, Lemony Snicket was a boy discovering the mysteries of the world. This is his story. In a fading town, far from anyone he knew or trusted, a young Lemony Snicket...

Before the Baudelaires became orphans, before he encountered A Series of Unfortunate Events, even before the invention of Netflix, Lemony Snicket was a boy discovering the mysteries of the world. This is his story. Train travel! Murder! Librarians! A Series Finale! On all other nights, the train...

He spent eleven years reading other people out of impossible contracts. Tonight he finally reads his own and learns he was never the lawyer. There's no case number on this one. Tonight the claimant is Napoleon Nightshade, and there is nowhere left to hand himself back to. He died on a steel table eleven years ago. He came back with a thorn over his heart and a gift for finding the crack in any agreement the dead-economy ever wrote. He told himself the mark was a scar. A curse. A souvenir. It was a meter. And it's almost full. Now the hold music he's heard his whole life—leaking from every...

Seabury Quinn's most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave. The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, presents all 93 published works featuring the supernatural detective. Presented in chronological order over five volumes, this is the definitive collection of an iconic pulp hero. The third volume, The Dark Angel, includes all Jules de Grandin stories from "The Lost Lady" to "The Hand of Glory", as well as The Devil's Bride.

Before the Baudelaires became orphans, before he encountered A Series of Unfortunate Events, even before the invention of Netflix, Lemony Snicket was a boy discovering the mysteries of the world. This is his story. In the fading town of Stain’d-by-the-Sea, young apprentice Lemony Snicket has a...

Meet Noah Farmer—wizard turned private investigator specializing in finding lost things, busting paranormal myths, and dealing with the occasional pesky ghost. When Saul asks him to find his missing sister, Noah jumps at the chance to help a friend. The trail leads to a paperback about the Curse of the Lost Dutchman’s Mine. Before he can make sense of this mysterious enchantment, a tremendous earthquake rips open a portal, dropping him into the 1880s with his magic sputtering like a wet candle. After he finds his way into Vulture City, he discovers the little sister he came to rescue ...

Hanover Elementary is not your average school. The milk cartons whisper advice. The pencil sharpener leaks secrets. And the cafeteria meatballs occasionally move on their own. Tommy Tiddleton was just trying to survive another weird Wednesday when he stumbled upon the first clue: a glowing sandwich bag marked “DO NOT OPEN.” Naturally, he opened it. Now, with the help of his best friends—Dev the skeptic, Blister the chaos enthusiast, and Miss Sheila the world’s most suspicious lunch lady—Tommy must navigate a bizarre underground archive, a sentient gravy spill, memory-erasing tacos...

VISIT THE AWESOME TEMPLE OF TOBRIOSUS SOLVE THE GREAT MYSTERY OF THE VANISHED TOBRII RACE For sleuth Barclay Heath, it was a mystery too great to resist. But as night falls on the deserted alien world, his fellow passengers begin to vanish one by one . . . Heath must unravel an age-old mystery before time runs out, before he, too, suffers the same fate as the Tobrii . . . The Barclay Heath Mysteries are set in a whimsical alternate-1920s, where humanity has ventured out into the stars but Twenties values and attitudes prevail. Barclay Heath is a gentleman detective enjoying semi-retirement ...

Before the Baudelaires became orphans, before he encountered A Series of Unfortunate Events—even before the invention of Netflix—Lemony Snicket was a boy discovering the mysteries of the world. This is his story. Young apprentice Lemony Snicket is investigating a case of arson but soon finds...

A killer stalks the fog‑choked streets of Victorian London. A detective hunts him across realities. And a doorway to an impossible world is about to open… Inspector Joshua Darknoll has seen his share of horrors, but nothing prepares him for a murder scene that defies every natural law. When the trail leads into a twisted, labyrinthine version of London — a place where shadows whisper and the air itself feels wrong — Darknoll is forced to confront a truth he was never meant to discover. As he pursues a madman through a city that mirrors his own yet obeys none of its rules, Darknoll ...

The law promised to make them whole. Something else read that promise as a contract—and came to collect the only collateral a broken body has left. When the catastrophically injured sign Halcyon Mutual's "Restorative Settlement," the miracle is real. The spine knits. The paralyzed walk. The mother who would never hold her child again carries her up the stairs. Then the miracles start calling their daughters by the wrong name. Napoleon Nightshade reads people out of impossible contracts—the ruinous, supernatural kind written in a debt economy that runs beneath the living world. But this ...

Before she was a vampire detective, she was a girl who couldn’t stop asking questions. Thirteen-year-old Samantha Radiance Sundance has a gift for finding trouble... and solving it. With her trusty notebook and endless curiosity, she’s already the best junior detective in the area. When a traveling carnival sets up on the outskirts of town, Sam senses something off beneath the flashing lights and cheerful music. The animals act nervous. The fortune-teller knows her name. And at night, shadows move on their own. When people start disappearing, Sam and her friends sneak behind the tents ...

A locked‑room mystery in deep space — perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, classic whodunnits, retro science fiction, and detective novels with a twist. It's the Roaring Twenties and humanity has ventured out into the stars. Orbiting at the edge of the solar system, the luxurious Hotel Galileo is a glittering Art Deco resort where wealthy travellers, socialites, scientists, and celebrities escape the troubles of Earth. But when an Arcturan dignitary is found murdered in his private suite, the glamorous space hotel becomes the scene of a chilling interstellar crime. Detective Barclay ...

Read by the incredible John Lee Winner of the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, a World Fantasy award, and a BSFA Award. Blending weird fiction with the police procedural, The City & The City is an existential thriller like no other. When the body of a murdered...