Book Review - The Kolchak Papers: The Original Novels

By Sam Christopher

Rating: 4.5 stars for the first novel, 4 for the second

The Kolchak Papers, put out in 2007 by Moonstone Press (which also holds the rights to comics adaptations of The Night Stalker), is a new printing of the two seminal stories that launched the Kolchak: The Night Stalker tv series of the ‘70s. These novels, written by Jeff Rice, are interesting simply in their creation. The first, The Night Stalker, is an original novel that inspired the highest rated telefilm of all time, starring Darren McGavin as the quintessential newsman, skeptical of everything and everyone around him yet enough of an empiricist to believe what he himself sees no matter how fantastic it seems (take that, Scully). The second book, The Night Strangler, is the novelization of an original script by the great Richard Matheson (I am Legend, Stir of Echoes, television credits too numerous to mention) based on Rice’s original novel. So the first book is a novel they made into a movie, and the second is a movie they made into a novel. Also, as a technical note, there are quite a few typos in this book, more than most professional works I’ve seen. It’s not that big a deal, really, just a little annoying at times.

The Night Stalker begins with a letter from the fictional character Carl Kolchak to writer Jeff Rice, telling Mr. Rice about the story that led to Kolchak’s being run out of Las Vegas on a rail and effectively ended his newspaper career. Kolchak is now working as a PR man in Hollywood and drinking to forget. The story centers on a series of murders of young women that took place in Vegas between 25 April and 15 May 1970. The murders all happened at night—not very unusual—and they all involved the loss of large amounts of blood by the victims—slightly more unusual—and they all involved the discovery of saliva and puncture marks on the victims’ necks, marks apparently made by “teeth such as the incisors of a medium to large-size dog”—very unusual, especially given that the saliva was found to be human. This leads Kolchak to investigate into the most logical conclusion that the killer at least believes himself to be a vampire, which leads him to ask all kinds of strange questions to people all over town. Which leads to the local authorities, fueled by old money and strong desire to maintain the tourist trade, to move to shut him down. The rest of the novel is a factual record of all that transpires, as befits the dictation of a newsman. The authorities, of course, prove to one and all in the end why they should always be questioned and never fully trusted. Which is how Carl ends up in Los Angeles. This novel also introduces us to another wonderful character who would be forever tied to Kolchak: the bellowing editor Tony Vincenzo. Tony (played by the wonderful actor Simon Oakland in every ‘70s screen version of the story) is described in this novel as “a small, dried-out Brooklyn-born Sicilian of such commanding presence and warmth that for years he has been totally disregarded by the Cosa Nostra, the Knights of Columbus, and the Italian-American club.

The Night Strangler was a telefilm made in 1973. Richard Matheson was commissioned to write this script for a follow-up film after the tremendous success of The Night Stalker. In this story, Kolchak has moved on to Seattle and the beginning finds him drinking in a bar, trying to interest someone in his “Vegas vampire” story. Tony Vincenzo, having a drink in the same watering hole, hears Kolchak’s voice and, against his better judgment, walks over to Carl’s table and the two reacquaint. Tony is now the editor of the Seattle Daily Chronicle and hires Kolchak (he feels badly about the way Carl was run out of Vegas). From there the story begins to become familiar: series of murders, all women, all evincing a loss of blood—albeit a much smaller loss this time. This time the trail leads not to a vampire but an alchemist living in the lost world of Underground Seattle, ostensibly trying to find “the elixir of life”, a serum which will prolong human life indefinitely. I have always thought that maybe they asked Matheson to do a Jack the Ripper story here (at the end of The Night Stalker novel Rice had included some “research” on the part of Kolchak detailing the Ripper case as “one of history’s most fascinating villains”) and he was creative enough to come up with something new while hewing close enough to the Ripper theme to satisfy the suits at the network. This novelization does a very good job of fleshing out the telefilm, although the film itself is not to be missed, containing great performances by Richard Anderson (The Six Million Dollar Man) as the unbalanced killer and John Carradine as the newspaper publisher.

I have purposely left the actual stories to these two novels vague because this is a book that should be read. Even if you have seen these two telefilms these two stories should be read. If you haven’t seen the films and have never read these novels I envy you your voyage of discovery. These stories, and the teleseries, hearken back to a time and style of storytelling where quick cuts and shock value were considered far less important than eccentricity of character and fun interaction. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a perfect marriage of these two principles. I used to wish there would be an episode where she had to fight something and was sent to interview the last “monster hunter” who fought it. She walks up to the door, knocks… and Carl Kolchak, long-since retired from both the newspaper and monster killing businesses, invites her in. Carl Kolchak is the American Van Helsing; he should not be forgotten.


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