Occult Detective Magazine #11

by John Linwood Grant, Dave Brzeski (Editor), Dave Jeffery

Welcome back to the world of Occult Detective Magazine. We have a great issue for you, our biggest yet, packed full of terrific fiction and reviews. And for those who haven’t been with us before, it may be worth saying that ODM is not a place for endless pastiches and rewrites of tired tropes. Our mission is to stretch, fold, twist and mutilate the idea of the Occult Detective, to show off the sheer breadth of the sub-genre. We therefore espouse all manner of literary, noir, folk horror, weird, horror, pulp and parody fictions – unashamedly.

So… what do we have this time? A brand new novella by Dave Jeffery. ‘A Strange Case Of Something Familiar’ – exclusive to ODM – is the first story in Dave’s latest series, Clutterbuck & Postlethwaite Investigate, and is a stimulating tale of wit and witchery. Surrounding that, we have some very different investigative tales. John Guy Collick provides ‘The Gardens Of Consamo Braque’, a dark fantasy, whilst ‘Binnorie, Binnorie’ by Rowena Spring is a contemporary police procedural with a most unusual witness.

Brandon Barrows returns to our pages with one of his supernatural/spiritual mysteries set in modern-day Japan, ‘Twilight Komorebi’, and I.A. Watson’s popular Vinnie de Soth is once more engaged in one of his weird cases as he unlocks the secrets of Charnwood Orphanage in ‘Vinnie de Soth and the Lost Generation’. Then we have ‘Where Birds Go to Die’ (set in Australia) by an author new to us, Charles Spiteri; a troubling and brutal story of drug experimentation gone bad in Thomas Hunt’s ‘Nobody Man’, and ‘The Boleskine House Affair’ by Jude Reid, featuring a meeting between her character Hilda Roxburgh and the Aleister Crowley. Plus a murder, naturally.

Rhys Hughes, know for his surrealistic tendencies, brings us the distinctly odd ‘The Ultimate Shape’, a Nathan Gesture adventure, and in John Llewellyn Probert’s ‘Fae From The Madding Crowd’, John Glory looks into a most peculiar case which seems to involve a changeling.

We end this issue with a tribute to our co-founder Sam Gafford, who we sadly lost six years ago, by printing his deeply-moving tale ‘The Land of Lonesomeness’, one of his finest stories and one which explores the horrors of the World War One and the final days of William Hope Hodgson – the creator, of course, of Carnacki the Ghost Finder, the seminal occult detective.

ODM #12 is already under construction.

Genres: Horror

272 pages, Paperback

Published September 15, 2025

About the author

John Linwood Grant lives in Yorkshire with a pack of lurchers and a beard. He may also have a family.

When he's not chronicling the adventures of Mr Bubbles, the slightly psychotic pony, he writes a range of supernatural, horror and speculative tales, some of which are actually published.

You can find him every week on his website which celebrates weird fiction and weird art, greydogtales.com, often with his dogs.

Reviews

[Allan Smulling · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been a while since I've picked up an Occult Detective Magazine so it was a pleasant time getting reacquainted with this publication. There was quite a variety of stories with several that I felt were outstanding (and well worth the price of admission). Of note: "A Strange Case of Something Familiar" by Dave Jeffery, "Twilight Komorebi" by Brandon Barrows, "Nobody Man" by Thomas Hunt and "The Boleskine House Affair" by Jude Reid. As an added bonus, "The Land of Lonesomeness" by Sam Gafford has been republished -- and was, for me, the cherry on top of the sundae.

[Tony Ciak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again, an outstanding collection of stories by an outstanding collection of authors. Some what a bittersweet final story in this issue; by the late Sam Gafford, a story culminating his, interests, writings, and studies he had dedicated in his life to; and is missed.

[Seth Tomko · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a video review of the short story "Where Birds Go to Die," which you can see here: https://youtu.be/faiTBck2FMA?si=NYsPH...