Occult detective fiction is a subgenre of detective fiction that combines the tropes of the main genre with those of supernatural, fantasy and/or horror fiction. Unlike the traditional detective who investigates murder and other common crimes, the occult detective is employed in cases involving ghosts, demons, curses, magic, vampires, undead, monsters and other supernatural elements. Some occult detectives are portrayed as being psychic or in possession of other paranormal or magical powers.
Occult detective Carnacki inspecting the "queer, soft, flabby, spreading foot-print" of an apparent ghost, in the 1910 story "The Searcher of the End House"
Algernon Blackwood's Dr. John Silence
Norbert Sevestre's Sâr Dubnotal
Sax Rohmer's Moris Klaw
Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of Gothic tales, mystery novels, and horror fiction. He was a leading ghost story writer of his time, central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era. M. R. James described Le Fanu as "absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories". Three of his best-known works are the locked-room mystery Uncle Silas, the lesbian vampire novella Carmilla, and the historical novel The House by the Churchyard.
The inspiration for The House by the Churchyard: the childhood home of Sheridan Le Fanu in Chapelizod in Dublin
The house on Merrion Square where Le Fanu lived
Le Fanu c. 1870
The seductive vampire Carmilla attacks the sleeping Bertha Rheinfeldt.