As this collection shows, the contemporary occult detective takes many forms, and may be male (John Taylor) or female (Jill Kismet), human (Pete Caldicott) or nonhuman (Dan Hendrickson), professional (Marla Mason) or amateur (Kate Connor), a saint (Piers Knight, sort of) or a sinner (Jezebel), gay (Tony Foster) or straight (Quincey Morris), cop (Jessi Hardin) or criminal (Tony Giodone). But each shares at least two traits with the others: specialized knowledge, and the courage to use it. Thus, they have more in common with the hard-boiled private eye than the classical sleuth. The occult detective is closer to Philip Marlowe than Hercule Poirot, and today usually appears in stories that are more “hard-boiled” than “cozy.”

Classical detective stories were all about the puzzle, usually (if ungrammatically) expressed as “who done it?” Once the cerebral investigator solved the mystery, action was usually left up to the authorities (“Inspector, arrest that man!”).

But the private eye goes beyond mere deduction. He (or she) may investigate, certainly — examining evidence, interviewing witnesses, consulting experts to interpret what has been uncovered. But, having put the pieces of the puzzle together to form a unified whole, the private eye does something about it. The title of Mickey Spillane’s first Mike Hammer novel expresses this point clearly: I, the Jury. And although most fictional private eyes are not brutal vigilantes like Mike Hammer, they usually share his desire to act against the bad guys, once the latter have been uncovered; it is no coincidence that in The Big Sleep Philip Marlowe compares himself to “a knight in dark armor.”

This willingness to confront evil on its own terms is also characteristic of the occult detective, who knows that wooden stakes have other uses besides holding up tents, and wolfsbane is not just a pretty flower.