History Main / OccultDetective

* ''The Night Haunter'' series by Robert Faulcon ( a pseudonym of Robert Holdstock) combines occult detective with VigilanteMan fiction. The titular character is out for blood after his family had been kidnapped by supernatural forces and their cultist minions.

* Harry D'amour from Creator/CliveBarker's ''Literature/TheLastIllusion'', ''The Great and Secret Show'', ''Everville'', and the forthcoming ''Literature/TheScarletGospels'', in which he gets to uhm, "detect" Pinhead from ''Franchise/{{Hellraiser}}''. Good luck with that, Harry.

* In ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' brothers Sam and Dean, and other Hunters are dedicated to hunting down supernatural menaces.

* Several of Creator/ManlyWadeWellman's recurring characters; Judge Pursuivant and John Thunstone are two of the more prominent.

%%%* ''Manga/MajinTanteiNougamiNeuro''
* ''Manga/TheWitchAndTheBeast'' is centred entirely around this as the two main characters come from the Order of Magical Resonance, which is essentially the magical FBI in charge of investigating supernatural and fantastical oddities.
* ''Anime/{{Nightwalker}}'' centers on a [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire penitent vampire]] who operates a private investigator business specializing in crimes caused by monsters.
* ''Anime/PhantomQuestCorp'': Detective Karino, of U Division, is a paranormal investigator who has a working-class relationship with [[HardDrinkingPartyGirl Ayaka Kisaragi]], the president of Phantom Quest Corp. As such, he often commissions his extra assignments to her as a personal favor, which lightens his workload. Of course, that's not the ''[[LoveInterest only reason]]'' he does it.

* The Spirit Detective, Yusuke Urameshi from ''Manga/YuYuHakusho''. Although he is less of a detective than one would expect. All he does is beating the crap out of the main threat to end all the bad stuff that is happening.
%%* [[spoiler:Ayase Yue]] in ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'' became one after the TimeSkip.
* L from ''Franchise/DeathNote''. Although the supernatural isn't his specialty in the story, he still nonetheless fights supernatural foes. [[spoiler: He succeeds in the film version.]]

* ''Anime/OccultAcademy'' involves a time traveler and the head of the titular Occult Academy finding the source that would cause the end of the world. When they're not busy working on the apocalypse case, they will spend some time solving supernatural cases around the city.
* Hieda Reijiro is the ''Youkai Hunter'', a former archaeologist who roams rural Japan in search of the supernatural.

* Creator/MarvelComics had an entire ''agency'' of these in the 1990s series ''ComicBook/{{Nightstalkers}}''. It was called Borderline Investigations and was run by [[InTheBlood Frank Drake]], [[{{Dhampyr}} Blade]], and [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire Hannibal King]].
* Dr. Occult from Franchise/TheDCU. He debuted in ''New Fun Comics'' #6 in 1935. He was a supernatural detective, whose detecting style was very much in the style of Sam Spade, only with supernatural abilities. He was assisted by his butler Jenkins in one adventure. His girlfriend/partner called Rose Psychic appeared in his first adventure and then returned again later in the series.

%%%* Marvel's Dr. Druid in Creator/WarrenEllis' ''Druid'' miniseries.
* Cal Macdonald from Creator/SteveNiles' ''ComicBook/CriminalMacabre'', as well as series of novels. Cal takes illicit drugs and befriends a network of ghouls to assist him in his cases. Policemen do not really care to be involved with Cal.
* Ambrose Bierce from the ''ComicBook/StanleyAndHisMonster'' mini-series in Franchise/TheDCU, who was himself created as a CaptainErsatz version of Constantine, along with others such as Rasputin and Willoughby Kipling; It's since been established that the four of them (Constantine included) pretty much do the exact same sort of work as one another, and Kipling has met and compared notes with Constantine.
* Dr. Terrence Thirteen, a.k.a. the Ghost-Breaker investigates and debunks seemingly-occult events. He has been appearing in DC Comics on and off since the 1950s, originating before DC formally combined all its titles into Franchise/TheDCU, and the fact that he is now pursuing his debunking career in a world that contains genuine superpowers and supernatural beings is frequently lampshaded.
* ''ComicBook/UsagiYojimbo'':
** Usagi occasionally acts in this capacity, like when he frees the town from a ghost of fallen general... by assisting him in finishing his {{Seppuku}}.
** Recurring character Sasuke the Demon-Queller, who's much more experienced at this.
* ''ComicBook/CaballisticsInc'', a strip appearing in ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD''.
** The main characters. Cabbalistics, Inc. was formed when Department Q, a Ministry of Defense department originally created in the 1940s to combat Nazi occult warfare, is privatized by the British government.
** Absalom is a more literal example, as he's an actual police detective attached to the department in charge of maintaining the peace deal between the British crown and the forces of hell.
* Psi Judges from ComicBook/JudgeDredd are usually responsible for investigating and combatting the more supernatural threats to Mega-City 1.
* Mallory Hope, titular character from ''Hope'', another strip appearing in ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'' also set in the 1940s, this time a private investigator delving into the occult side of Hollywood.

* ComicBook/DoctorStrange. He has a number of artifacts which make this much easier, particularly the Eye of Agamotto.
* Sara Pezzini from ''ComicBook/{{Witchblade}}''. While she gets to fight against countless demons, monsters and supernatural creatures lurking inside New York, everybody at the NYPD thinks she just happens to be a detective who gets too many weird cases.
%%%* ''Hellstorm: Son of Satan''.
* ''ComicBook/TheGoon'', although he's more of a thug whose "detective work" usually amounts to "beating information out of zombies and redneck werewolves."
* ''ComicBook/{{Zatanna}}'': The Zatara family can be this on occasion, either investigating odd events involving magical creatures or being asked in by cops who know when things go out of their realm and into theirs.

* Kate Kane deals with this as ComicBook/{{Batwoman}} fairly often, enough that it's one of her operative niches.

* The protagonist of the Argentine horror comic ''Martin Hel'', created by Robin Wood.
* ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'': Damien Darkblood is a demon detective who worked for the Global Defense Agency.

* "Who you gonna call?" Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}}! Sorry, make that "Professional Paranormal Investigation and Elimination!"

%%%* William Sebastian from ''Spectre''.
* Played with in ''Film/SherlockHolmes2009''. Almost everybody believes Lord Blackwood actually has magical powers, and even Watson considers the possibility. Holmes himself doesn't completely rule this out, but he insists on exhausting all other more mundane possibilities first. He investigates several of Blackwood's labs and magical rituals, and in the end it's revealed that Blackwood doesn't have any such powers at all.
* 2001's ''Film/{{Vidocq}}'', which the previous example might be a WholePlotReference to, has the title character investigating some paranormal murders, and it's implied he has some occult knowledge himself.

** ''The Temple of Doom'' resembles an occult detective story the most, with the theft of the holy Sankara stones, the perpetrators being an evil cult who brainwash people by forcing them to drink a liquid, one of them harming Indy by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poppet harming a doll]] of him, etc.
* ''Film/Constantine2005'': John Constantine is definitely an occult detective and an exorcist to boot, a demon hunter...

* In ''Film/TheFactsInTheCaseOfMisterHollow'' an unseen viewpoint character who is the recipient of a photo from Mister Hollow, during an active investigation of paganism in Ontario.

* Dr. Martin Hesselius from ''In a Glass Darkly'' by Creator/JosephSheridanLeFanu. Credited as the first embodiment of the trope in fictional literature, and thus, the TropeMaker.
* Dr. Abraham van Helsing of ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'' is the TropeCodifier. Although he doesn't start this way, he quickly becomes one. Yet while most adaptations portray Helsing as an adventuresome monster hunter, in the book he is just a doctor with very eclectic experience, who approaches vampirism as he would any other disease, albeit one that has symptoms including supernatural belligerence and fantastic powers and weaknesses.
%%%* Dr. Raymond from Arthur Machen's ''Literature/TheGreatGodPan'', who doubles as a MadScientist.
%%%* Flaxman Low from ''Real Ghosts'' by E. and H. Herron.
%%%* Algernon Blackwood's Dr. John Silence.
* Downplayed in the ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' novel ''Revenant''. Art Sledge is a normal HardBoiledDetective who mainly works in divorce cases, but working in "work{ing] out of the shadows in this town" causes him to know about the supernatural forces of Sunnydale and be prepared to deal with them.
* David from ''Literature/Haunted1988'' investigates ghosts though he doesn't believe in their existence.
* Creator/MarkGatiss' character Lucifer Box turns into one despite a ([[PlanetEris relatively]]) straight first book. In the sequel, ''The Devil in Amber'', suddenly he's stopping Satan from manifesting on earth.
* The [[Literature/CarnackiTheGhostFinder Thomas Carnacki]] stories by Creator/WilliamHopeHodgson. Some of Carnacki's cases are not occult at all; it is Carnacki's trick that he is open to both possibilities.
* Literature/AndrewDoran: A lot of Andrew's activities when he's not doing archaeology or outright war with the monsters is this sort of thing, including investigating murders as well as other Cthulhu Mythos activity.
* ''Literature/DirkGently'' is a subversion, as he doesn't believe in the occult or paranormal; to him, it's just an elaborate con. He is repeatedly frustrated to find his cons coming true, however.
* Harry D'amour from Creator/CliveBarker's ''[[Film/LordOfIllusions The Last Illusion]]'', ''The Great and Secret Show'', ''Everville'', and the forthcoming ''Literature/TheScarletGospels'', in which he gets to uhm, "detect" Pinhead from ''Franchise/{{Hellraiser}}''. Good luck with that, Harry.

* ''Literature/TheThreeInvestigators'' had a fair amount of them as well.
%%%* Vicki Nelson of ''BloodBooks'' (also in the [[Series/BloodTies2007 TV show]]).
* Many of Creator/HPLovecraft's protagonists could be thought of as "non-professional" Occult Detectives, in that they are highly educated, academic types (geologists, folklorists, librarians, 90% of them graduates of or professors at [[LovecraftCountry Miskatonic University]]) -- with at least a cursory knowledge of cults, dark legends, occult practices and [[TomeOfEldritchLore that terrible old book in Armitage's library]]. Most of them get thrown in the midst of some terrible supernatural happening, [[CosmicHorrorStory usually with less than great results]].
* ''Literature/RepairmanJack'', although not technically a detective, keeps running into spooky stuff he must protect his vigilante-for-hire clients from. Fortunately he's getting pretty good at it, and packs more heat than most of the above examples.
* In the ''Literature/SimonArk'' short stories by Edward D. Hoch, Simon looks to be an ordinary man in his sixties but claims he is actually over 2000 years old, a Coptic priest who travels the world looking for evil--specifically Satan. It is said that he is cursed by God, that when Jesus carrying the cross wanted to rest, Ark refused him and in turn has never known rest himself, doomed to wander the globe forever. However the immortality element is not played up in any way and is just incidental. The Simon Ark stories have supernatural themes, although the crimes in them are always found to have been committed by mundane means.
* Harper Blaine from Kat Richardson's ''{{Literature/Greywalker}}'' series, who actually was a qualified P.I. even before she began having supernatural experiences.

* ''Literature/FoucaultsPendulum'' is a darkly satirical {{Deconstruction}} of this trope.
* ''Literature/AnitaBlake'': In addition to raising the dead, she's a Federal Marshal, and consults with the local police force's preternatural task force.
* ''Literature/FelixCastor'': An exorcist rather than a detective by trade, but he usually ends up having to solve some mystery or another.

* Subverted in ''Eater of Souls'', a period mystery set in ancient Egypt. While the crime turned out to be [[spoiler: the work of a mortal serial killer]], sleuth/spymaster Lord Meren pursues it under the presumption that something supernatural ''could'' be to blame, even going so far as to remind his son to wear protective amulets while investigating.
%%%* ''Literature/{{Haunted 1988}}'': David Ash in several books by James Herbert.
* Inverted in the ''Literature/GarrettPI'' novels, as Garrett is a BadassNormal from a world where the fantastic isn't hidden at all, and he frequently discovers that a crime had been committed for completely mundane reasons, even if its methods of commission were magical.
* ''Literature/LordDarcy'' (although he exists in a world where magic is real and is fully understood).
* The protagonists of ''Literature/TheLongingOfShiinaRyo'' may become this, depending on their sensei's mood.
* [[KidDetective Nelly Rapp]] in the Swedish childrens' book series ''Monsterakademin''. She works for a secret society, and while her title is "monster agent" she rarely does anything violent and often acts more like an occult social worker -- DarkIsNotEvil, and some "monsters" mostly need help. She is a KidDetective because the Academy starts training very early.
* The ''Literature/TitusCrow'' series of books by Creator/BrianLumley, in which the protagonist enters the world of H.P.Lovecraft and kicks ass.
* DCI Nightingale, and Detective Constable Peter Grant, from the ''Literature/RiversOfLondon'' books, are official Occult Detectives.

* In James D. Macdonald's ''Bad Blood'' series, Freddie Hanger fights supernatural dangers with a research-and-deduction-oriented method.
%%%* James William Butler "Literature/SandmanSlim" Stark.
%%%* The Iron Druid, Atticus O'Slulivan, of the ''Literature/IronDruidChronicles''.
* Creator/MercedesLackey's character Literature/DianaTregarde isn't officially a detective, but a Guardian's job description includes finding out whether the Bad Stuff Going On is mystical, and ending it if it is.
* Creator/SeaburyQuinn's Jules De Grandin defended New Jersey from monsters and mad scientists.
* The Twenty Palace Society tries to track down spell books and monster summoners.
* Diana Rowland's ''Literature/KaraGillian'' series features a detective for a small-town Louisiana police department... who summons demons and ends up dealing with assorted arcane threats to said town.
* The title character of the ''Literature/MediochreQSethSeries'', among other jobs, hunts down and catches illegal monster-slayers for a living.
* A group of Dutch children's book writers called ''Het Griezelgenootschap'' (The Horror Society) wrote two {{Gamebooks}} featuring a boy who takes over his uncle's business of being a private detective specialized in supernatural problems, like demons and vampires.
* The titular character of ''Literature/SkulduggeryPleasant''. He's a living skeleton with magic who basically works as as P.I. for magicians. When he's not busy saving the world.

* Creator/SimonRGreen loves this trope.
** ''Literature/ForestKingdom'': The ''Hawk & Fisher'' spinoff series features the fantasy beat-cops Hawk and Fisher, who typically investigate cases involving magic and/or monsters.
** ''Literature/GhostFinders'': Features a trio of haunting-investigators.
** ''Literature/{{Nightside}}'': John Taylor is a private investigator in the Nightside, where he investigates all manner of supernatural cases.
** ''Literature/SecretHistories'': Eddie Drood is part of whole ''family'' of paranormal investigators and eliminators.
* Daniel Gonzalez uses this trope in three different novels; anthropologist Zarate Arkham in ''Un grito en las tinieblas'', cryptozoologist duo Isabel Walsh and Montserrat Le Febre in ''Algo se oculta en la oscuridad'' and the entire Raven Corporation in ''Ravencraft''
* Henry Darger wrote a spinoff Vivian Girls mystery called ''Crazy House: Further Adventures in Chicago''. Here the little girls and their companion/secret brother Penrod investigate a house where several people, including children, have been found horribly murdered. The house is either haunted or possessed; it's like the Overlook in Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheShining''.
* Acatl, main character of ''Literature/ObsidianAndBlood'', is a High Priest of the Dead in pre-Colombian Tenochitlan (modern day Mexico City). He uses BloodMagic to solve supernatural crimes, ones which often turn out to have the machinations of gods behind them.
* John Justin Mallory in Creator/MikeResnick's ''Stalking the Unicorn'', ''Stalking the Vampire'' and ''Stalking the Dragon''. The crimes he investigates take place in an alternate reality where everything from leprechauns to cat-people really exists.
* ''Literature/DanShambleZombiePI'' was originally a human investigator who specialized in working cases in the Unnatural Quarter. Then he got shot in the head, rose from the grave, and is now just as much an "unnatural" as his clients.
* There are whole agencies of them in ''Literature/LockwoodAndCo'' to deal with the Problem--a sudden influx and infestation of ghosts and ghostly activity.
* ''Literature/ThePardonersTale'' features Nick Pardoner who is a part-time detective and a part-time exorcist ''and'' a werewolf. So he's an occult Occult Detective.
* Elizabeth from the ''Literature/MrAndMrsDarcyMysteries'', though it's downplayed after the second book.
* Creator/JohnCWright's story "[[http://www.scifiwright.com/2014/04/pale-realms-of-shade/ Pale Realms of Shade]]", which involves Matthew Flint and Sylvester Steel who run the agency "Flint and Steel Investigations" specializing in the supernatural, with the help of a plethora of artifacts. Though the story itself is less about the agency and more about Matthew's experiences in the afterlife.
* Downplayed in ''The Peculiar Exploits of Brigadier Ffellowes'' and its followup novel ''The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes'' by Sterling E. Lanier. While the titular brigadier has done quite a few paranormal investigations on whether by chance encounter, misadventure or on behalf of the British government, many of his adventures don't involve the supernatural and his stories are as much Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs as Creator/WilliamHopeHodgson.
* ''Literature/SeventeenAndGone'' follows Lauren, who uses her dreams and visions to try and track down missing girls, Abby in particular.

* ''Literature/DanielFaust'' insists he's "vengeance for hire", being a former mob hitman, but he's not as dissimilar from Harry Dresden as he would have you believe. Lampshaded in "The White Gold Score":
--> ''Daniel:'' I sell vengeance for hire. I'm not some kind of...magic detective."\\
''Greenbriar:'' When you do jobs for people, do you use magic? And these jobs. Do they require investigation? Research? Perhaps looking for clues and assembling those clues in the correct order? You're a magic detective.
* The Talamasca from ''Literature/TheVampireChronicles'' is a secret organization dedicated to the investigation and documentation of the supernatural. They gather documents and artifacts, work to hide evidence of paranormal activities from the public and often help people troubled by such phenomenon. Many members of the organization possess supernatural abilities like telepathy. Among Talamasca's many interests are, of course, also the vampires. Unfortunately for them, agents who have a brush with vampirism tend to end up turned and leave the order.

* ''Literature/RiversOfLondon'' features the magical investigation arm of [[UsefulNotes/ScotlandYard the Met]]. [[OddlySmallOrganisation Both of them]].
* Creator/JosephPayneBrennan created the character of psychic detective Lucius Leffing.
* Michael Cummings in Amelia Reynolds Long's short story ''Literature/TheThoughtMonster''.
* ''Literature/LordElMelloiIICaseFiles'' features its titular character as one working on behalf of the various clients, students, and associates that come to his department of the [[TheMagocracy the Magic Association]]. His method usually is to unravel the esoterica behind the magic rituals used in each case in order to figure out what happened and then let [[StrongGirlSmartGuy his assistant Gray clean up the mess]] when the culprit inevitably become aggressive.
* In Creator/MercedesLackey's ''Sacred Ground'', Jennifer Talldeer is a private investigator who normally works the usual PI beat (adulterous or abusive spouses, checking out job seekers, and so on). She's also an Osage Warrior Shaman who tracks down lost Indian artifacts and investigates cases of Bad Medicine. The case in the book involves an [[InsuranceFraud insurance case]] relating to a construction project tainted by an evil shaman from long ago.
* The main character of ''Literature/TheCaseOfTheToxicSpellDump'' isn't a detective, working for his world's equivalent of the EPA, but he investigates crimes and [[MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot uncovers a conspiracy]] in a world where magic is and always has been normalized.
* ''The Devil's Detective'' and its sequel, ''The Devil's Evidence'', by Simon Kurt Unsworth follow the career of Thomas Fool, an "Information Man" (essentially a police detective) in Hell.
* ''Literature/MilesPennoyer'' would describe himself as a "psychic doctor" and claim that his line of work focuses on administering to the maladies of the soul. That being said, the majority of his work in that field involves sussing out just what sort of paranormal factors are causing those maladies and occasionally doing battle with them to aid his patients. His powers include the ability of sense paranormal forces, to broadcast waves of suggestive force to weak-willed individuals, and to manipulate the psychic energy of a space to protect himself and others from the influence of the supernatural. Additional training in quasi-magical disciplines allows him to perform rituals to identify and control some otherworldly entities.
* In the ''Warlock Holmes'' series of Franchise/SherlockHolmes pastiches by G.S. Denning, Holmes is the occultist, Watson is the detective. Neither can function as an occult detective alone, because Watson doesn't understand the world of magic, and Holmes doesn't understand even the most basic concepts of logic and rational thought.

* Agents Mulder and Scully of ''Series/TheXFiles''. The show largely consists of their special FBI unit (that is, just the two of them) investigating bizarre, inexplicable things. Very frequently what they run into does involve the supernatural, or mutants, or aliens, or especially the government conspiracies.

* ''Series/RandallAndHopkirkDeceased'' more the [[TurnOfTheMillennium Noughties]] remake than the original 1969-70 series; there the cases were more usually normal crimes... it's just that one of the detectives was a ghost.
* ''Series/{{Angel}}''. It's the entire premise of the show, although it occasionally riffs on Angel being better at battling evil than actual detective work. At one point he's reduced to hiring another private detective with a FriendOnTheForce, his own police insider having left the show.
* Averted in ''Series/PushingDaisies'', where the hero is an investigator with a superhuman power, but all the crimes he investigates are non-occult, though still incredibly weird.
* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'': Special Agent Olivia Dunham, along with MadScientist Walter Bishop and his son Peter, doesn't really investigate "occult" stuff, but rather incredibly strange and bizarre incidents.
* ''Series/TwinPeaks'' has Dale Cooper investigating the unusual death of Laura Palmer. Said death involved an evil entity that can possess certain living people, an alternate universe that looks like a art-deco hotel lobby, and a one-armed man whose arm is now a dwarf.
* In ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' brothers Sam and Dean, and other Hunters are dedicated to hunting down supernatural menaces.

%%%* ''Series/ShadowChasers'' Mackenzie and Benedek.
* The characters of ''Series/KamenRiderDouble'' investigate strange happenings as caused by Dopants, humans-turned-monsters by use of [[FantasticDrug Gaia Memories, giant USB sticks from the center of the Earth]]. The show is technically science fiction, but it's soft enough to be considered UrbanFantasy, particularly considering how much [[TheHero Shoutaro]] is concerned with being [[HardboiledDetective hardboiled]].
* ''Series/{{Grimm}}''. Homicide Detective Nick Burkhardt of the Portland Police Bureau learns he is descended from a line of "guardians" known as "Grimms", charged with keeping the balance between humanity and the mythological creatures of the world, called ''Wesen''.
** It's worth noting that Nick is actually fairly unique in this regard. It's all but stated that most Grimm tend to act as the occult ''[[HunterOfMonsters hunters]]'' rather than detectives, who'd gladly kill ''any'' Wesen, regardless of whether they've done anything to warrant it, whereas Nick only goes after Wesen who commit crimes and leaving the peaceful ones like [[TheBigBadWolf Monroe]] and [[FantasticFoxes Rosalee]] alone. Understandably, this throws a lot of Wesen for a loop when they meet him.
* ''Dark Intruder'' (a failed pilot movie for the TV series ''The Black Cloak'') was set in Victorian Era San Francisco. It featured Leslie Nielsen (of all people) as a ([[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadAss seemingly]]) happy go lucky playboy who solved Occult-related mysteries in his spare time.
* ''Series/KolchakTheNightStalker'' (and the later remake) featured Carl Kolchak, who kept stumbling over supernatural doings. In the original series, he usually ended up working alone, and there were never any witnesses when he finally defeated the Monster of the Week.
* A variant is part of the setup for ''Series/TheDeadFiles''. Co-host Steve Di Schavi is a retired detective who conducts a real-world investigation of the circumstances behind a haunting, while psychic medium Amy Allen does a reading of the haunted location. The two then combine their work before the client(s), with Steve's research often giving grounding to Amy's impressions.
* One skit on ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' has the police taking up magic to fight crime. They use magic wands to turn crooks into toads, vanish illegally parked cars, and teleport old ladies across the street, as well as attempting to use a (rather rude) OuijaBoard to investigate crimes. Things go wrong when the press spots them sacrificing a criminal though.

* The Paranormal Unit in ''Series/WellingtonParanormal''.

* Bureau 13 from ''Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic'', which also spawned a series of novels and a video game. Bureau 13 (the 13th Bureau of the Justice Department) was founded in 1862 by Abraham Lincoln to deal with supernatural and paranormal threats to the Union (and suppress any public knowledge of them). The original agents were a motley crew of military personnel, [[PinkertonDetective Pinkerton detectives]], civilian consultants, freed slaves, paroled criminals, and even Confederate prisoners of war. The job of Bureau 13 is as it has always been: Investigate the strange or unusual, analyze the evidence to see if there is a supernatural or paranormal cause, and assess whether the cause is hostile or dangerous.
* TabletopGame/ChroniclesOfDarkness:
** ''TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil'' has the Null Mysteriis, or: The Organization for Rational Assession of the Supernatural. The other organizations are more interested in [[HunterOfMonsters hunting and destroying the supernaturals]] than uncovering facts about them.
** ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' is explicitly inspired by ''Hellblazer'' and ''The Dresden Files'', and a big part of Mages' shtick is "shoving their noses into Mysteries where they really, really don't belong".

* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}} Mysteries'' has a chapter on "Paranormal Mysteries" including vignettes featuring Lady [=McKelvery=], a police detective mage in a Generic Fantasy City, and a sidebar mentioning ''TabletopGame/GURPSTechnomancer'' (which has [[SWATTeam Special Weapons and Talismans teams]]).
* ''TabletopGame/PrincessTheHopeful:'' This is one of the common hats for the Seeker Calling. They are the Princesses specifically called to seek out and share the truth, and they have affinity for the Learn and Govern charm trees (which have to do with seeking out knowledge and interacting with other supernatural forces, respectively).
* Faye Diamond aka Nightmist in ''TabletopGame/SentinelsOfTheMultiverse'' started out as a regular private detective before running afoul of a magic curse while investigating a Coven. After that she dealt almost exclusively in the occult and became the go to gal when other superheroes had magic related problems. Eventually, following a trip through the Void, she transitioned from a detective into more of a Sorcerer Supreme-type character.

* Sheriff Bigby Wolf from ''VideoGame/TheWolfAmongUs'' fits the description. The reformed [[Main/TheBigBadWolf big bad wolf]], it's his job to protect "Fables" (Fairy tale creatures whom fled to our world) from each other. The events of the game have him trying to find the murderer of a local hooker and uncovering a sinister conspiracy in the process.
%%* Dante from ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry''.
* Gabriel Knight, the titular character in the ''VideoGame/GabrielKnight'' series of adventure games, who investigates murders related to things such as Voodoo, Werewolves, and Vampires. Interestingly, in the first game, he's just a occult ''author'', looking into crimes to get ideas for his books. He only becomes an actual Occult Detective (and HunterOfMonsters) through the events of the story, and seems reluctant to actually fulfill that role in the second game (though he's all over it in the third).
* Despite the subtitle of 'Phantom Detective', Sissel of ''VideoGame/GhostTrick'' originally subverts this. It's only in pursuit of his own identity and murderer that he solves the multitude of mysteries around him. [[spoiler: And all of them turn out to be related to his identity anyway.]]
* The protagonist of ''VideoGame/MurderedSoulSuspect'' is a detective who dies within the first minutes of the game. He spends the rest as a ghost investigating his own murder, which, being set in Salem, Massachusetts, of course involves witchcraft and the supernatural.
%%%* Patrick Galloway, the player character in ''[[InCaseYouForgotWhoWroteIt Clive Barker's]] [[VideoGame/CliveBarkersUndying Undying]]''.
%%%* The Startling Developments agency in ''VideoGame/PennyArcadeAdventures''.

%%%* Raidou Kuzunoha, from the Shin Megami Tensei spinoff ''VideoGame/RaidouKuzunohaVsTheSoullessArmy''.
* The protagonists of both ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' and ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'' end up very frequently investigating and/or fighting ghosts, [[JustForFun/RecycledINSPACE Force]] ghosts, demons and the like.
* ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' has The Sealing Club duo: Marybery Hearn (student of Relative Psychology), and Renko Usami (student of Super-unifying Physics). They mainly give a glimpse of how dangerous and terrifying Gensokyo is from the view of a {{muggle}}.

* A popular trend in {{Hidden Object Game}}s is to frame the FeaturelessProtagonist as a detective who gets drawn into the supernatural plots of the games. For example:
** While the first two ''VideoGame/MysteryCaseFiles'' games lacked supernatural elements, the Master Detective's investigations since the third game, ''Ravenhearst'', have pitted her against ghosts, curses, and dangerous mystical artifacts.
** The detective in ''Mystery Trackers'' by Creator/ElephantGames works for an agency that specializes in this sort of case.
** The player character of the ''VideoGame/DarkParables'' is a variant of the trope. She works for a detective agency that specifically solves mysteries connected to ''fairy tales'', and thus naturally she encounters a plethora of magical items, characters, and disasters.
** Dupin and the player character in ''VideoGame/DarkTales'' may not consider themselves to be this; however, roughly half of the cases they solve in the course of the series have some sort of supernatural genesis. Usually this takes the form of a ghostly encounter of some kind, although ''The Fall of the House of Usher'' takes the weird factor to the next level.
** The three detectives who make up the ''VideoGame/DetectivesUnited'' are each this in their own origin series. Anna Gray is a psychic investigator who solves the ''Grim Tales'' mysteries; James Blackthorne is a ritual magic expert and paranormal researcher who features in ''Haunted Hotel''; and Agent Brown is an [[{{Invisibility}} invisible]] investigator with the ''Mystery Trackers''. The three join forces when the occult mystery in question is too much for one of them to handle alone.

* Rosangela Blackwell hunts for ghosts in ''VideoGame/TheBlackwellSeries''.
* David Young from ''VideoGame/{{D4}}'' is a former BPD detective who, after the death of his wife and a bullet injury to the head, gained mysterious powers to use special items called "mementos", "diving" back to their past. Obviously, he uses this power to solve crimes in his search for "D".
* Nearly half of the ''VideoGame/NancyDrew'' adventure games have her investigating spooky events, and one suspect in "Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon" is a TV ghost hunter himself.
* Like previous [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Lovecraftian related or inspired stories]], [[PlayerCharacter The Hunter]] from ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'' is an occult detective, but in this case it's [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]]. The Hunter originally came to [[EldritchLocation Yharnam]] with the intention of getting cured of an unknown disease, but after waking up on [[CrapsackWorld The Dream]], they set out to kill monsters and discover the mysteries of the town. How successful they are, given that [[EverythingTryingToKillYou pretty nearly everything around them is incredibly aggressive]], depends on the player.

* The protagonist of ''VideoGame/TheSinkingCity'' is a somewhat unhinged private investigator who gained sanity-breaking Postcognition abilities after a brush with an aquatic Great Old One. The plot of the game revolves around him coming to investigate a city that has been cursed with perpetual rains, violent oceanic activity, and an infestation of monsters by the doing of a Lovecraftian cult dedicated to that same Great Old One.
* In ''VideoGame/CultistSimulator'', these are the {{Hero Antagonist}}s to your own VillainProtagonist. As the player attempts to [[ImmortalitySeeker attain immortality]], [[ImmortalityImmorality usually through illegal and immoral means]], Hunters from the Suppression Bureau will be sent to track them and turn their Notereity into evidence that can be used to imprison them.

* In ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob,'' after [[PunnyName Agent Ben and Agent Jerry]] had investigated a number of bizarre phenomena for the FBI, they were promoted to the status of a "paranormal taskforce". Jerry despises the situation and pines for the days when he was a "real cop", and not stuck investigating FishPeople reports [[CosmicHorror in Innsmouth]] and similar such nonsense.
* ''Webcomic/HannaIsNotABoysName'' centers on the cases of the eponymous Hanna, paranormal investigator, and his new, somewhat decomposed, partner. These cases do not always turn out well.

* In ''Webcomic/TheWeave'', Ruby and Howard are sent to investigate a murder, which seems rather mundane... until it turns out the victim was a [[TheFairFold fairy queen]] and the two of them use magical means to find a lead.

* Austin Jones, the protagonist of ''Literature/{{Antlers Colorado}}'' ends up helping the police of the titular small town with a series of supernatural crimes. His family also runs a secret government organization known as the Department of Paranormal Research, which is pretty much ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.

* ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'''s Dib considers himself a paranormal investigator. Several other paranormal investigators appear throughout the series with varying degrees of sanity.
* ''WesternAnimation/MartinMystery'': Martin and his stepsister Diana work for the covert organization "The Center", which secretly protects the people of Earth from extraterrestrial and supernatural threats.
* Dipper and Mabel from ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls''. After finding a mysterious journal, they start noticing unusual happenings around their summer home, involving cryptids, mythical creatures, and a two-dimensional demon.

* "Who you gonna call? Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}}! Sorry, make that "Professional Paranormal Investigation and Elimination!"

* [[CatchPhrase When crime takes a turn for the weird]], the Manila police call Alexandra ComicBook/{{Trese}}.