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The Complete Cabalistic Cases of Semi Dual, the Occult Detector, Volume 1: 1912
One of Pulpdom’s earliest occult detectives returns! Running for over twenty years in the pages of The Cavalier, All-Story Weekly, The People’s Magazine, Top Notch, and Argosy, among others, these tales have never been reprinted until now. Volume 1 contains the first three tales of Prince Abdul Omar AKA Semi Dual, all from 1912: “The Occult Detector,” “The Significance of the High ‘D’,” and “The Wistaria Scarf.” This premiere collection includes an all-new introduction by Garyn Roberts, Ph.D.
- GenresOccult DetectivePulp
274 pages, Paperback
First published March 15, 2013
12 people want to read
About the author
John Ulrich Giesy
34 books1 followerJohn Ulrich Giesy (J.U. Giesy) was an American physician, novelist, an author. He was one of the early writers in the Sword and Planet genre with his Jason Croft series. He collaborated with Junius B. Smith on many of his stories.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 14, 2025
The description of this book brought to mind Carnacki the Ghost Finder by William Hope Hodgson, and that being so I was in a hurry to get into it. But the book is nothing of the kind.
Semi Dual is a Persian living in New York State. He professes to being several hundred years old. His interests in life are rescuing blameless people from being certainly incarcerated. In the final story, an adventure, Semi Dual and Glacé, the narrator, go across Europe and into the Middle East near Tehran to rescue a woman who has been kidnapped with intention of being sold into bondage.
Semi Dual has no particular physical powers. He practices astrology, numerology, handwriting analysis and other mystical practices to learn answers to questions.
As the series begins, Glacé is a newspaper reporter who bonds with Dual. He will later become a private detective with the help of Dual.
These stories were written in 1912 and we are reminded of that by the need to crank a car for the spark to get it started, travel by streetcars and horses, old, inconsistent telephones, etc.
The three novellas, each about 100 pages, were excellent and will lead me to read more of these adaventures.
Semi Dual is a Persian living in New York State. He professes to being several hundred years old. His interests in life are rescuing blameless people from being certainly incarcerated. In the final story, an adventure, Semi Dual and Glacé, the narrator, go across Europe and into the Middle East near Tehran to rescue a woman who has been kidnapped with intention of being sold into bondage.
Semi Dual has no particular physical powers. He practices astrology, numerology, handwriting analysis and other mystical practices to learn answers to questions.
As the series begins, Glacé is a newspaper reporter who bonds with Dual. He will later become a private detective with the help of Dual.
These stories were written in 1912 and we are reminded of that by the need to crank a car for the spark to get it started, travel by streetcars and horses, old, inconsistent telephones, etc.
The three novellas, each about 100 pages, were excellent and will lead me to read more of these adaventures.
Displaying 1 of 1 review