[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/theunknown1_6919.jpg]]

->''It's a story that's part classic chase, part detective, part speculative science, part metaphysical, part crime drama, part buddy flick, and oh, hell, let's just throw in the damn kitchen sink while we're at it and God knows how he did it but it all ''works''.''
-->-- Creator/GailSimone's introduction to the first trade paperback

Catherine Allingham is the smartest detective in the world. She is also dying of a brain tumor and has six months to live. The way she copes with this? Solve the biggest mystery of them all: what happens to us ''after we die''?

Joined by her ex-bouncer bodyguard James Doyle, she travels across the world searching for the elusive truth and delving deeper and deeper in the world of mystery and the macabre.

A MindScrew comic book by Creator/MarkWaid. A second mini-series came out in 2011 called ''The Unknown: The Devil Made Flesh''.

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!!Tropes used in this comic series:

* AgentScully: Cat. Though she believes in the human soul and that there must be some sort of afterlife, she refuses to believe in anything else supernatural.
* DeadpanSnarker: Both Cat and Doyle take turns with this.
-->'''Doyle:''' There's a gun in my carry-on!
-->'''Cat:''' You're not carrying ''now''?
-->'''Doyle:''' Forgive me for not anticipating an ''Asian golem with needles for fingers!''
* DefectiveDetective: Due to her tumor, Cat now has hallucinations. That's why she brings along Doyle, so that he can corroborate everything she sees.
* GreatDetective: Cat Allingham.
* HereWeGoAgain: At the end of the first mini-series, Cat's traveled to the foot of Mt. Fuji to the "Suicide Forest" to investigate [[spoiler:the death of an "angel."]] She says, "What else am I gonna do?"
* KnightTemplar: Kerberos. He was charged with stopping anybody from opening the door to the afterlife and that's what he'll do. [[spoiler:Even if he has to shoot a little boy.]]
* OccultDetective: Though Cat doesn't believe in the occult at all, still she ends up knee-deep in it.
* TheWatson: James Doyle (although he has good detecting skills of his own).
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