Occult detective stories combine the tropes of the detective story with those of supernatural horror fiction. Unlike the traditional detective the occult detective is employed in cases involving ghosts, curses, and other supernatural elements. He or she is often a doctor inclined to metaphysical speculation.
Famous quotes containing the words occult, detective and/or fiction:
“The thing with Catholicism, the same as all religions, is that it teaches what should be, which seems rather incorrect. This is “what should be.” Now, if you’re taught to live up to a “what should be” that never existed—only an occult superstition, no proof of this “should be”Mthen you can sit on a jury and indict easily, you can cast the first stone, you can burn Adolf Eichmann, like that!”
—Lenny Bruce (1925–1966)
“You can always tell a detective on TV. He never takes his hat off.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“Americans will listen, but they do not care to read. War and Peace must wait for the leisure of retirement, which never really comes: meanwhile it helps to furnish the living room. Blockbusting fiction is bought as furniture. Unread, it maintains its value. Read, it looks like money wasted. Cunningly, Americans know that books contain a person, and they want the person, not the book.”
—Anthony Burgess (b. 1917)