KOLCHAK: HAUNTED & HUNTED | ©2024 Moonstone Books

Writer: Paul Terry, based on characters created by Jeff Rice and Richard Matheson
Price: $7.49
Publisher: Moonstone Books
Publication Date: May 24, 2024

There are certain books, films and TV series that are inflection points for their genres, subtly or even overtly changing the way things are seen and done ever after.

One of these was THE NIGHT STALKER, which premiered on ABC January 11, 1972. Based on a previously unpublished novel by Jeff Rice and directed by John Llewellyn Moxey from a script by Richard Matheson, the telefilm introduced us to struggling but determined newspaper writer Carl Kolchak, played by the inimitable Darren McGavin.

Kolchak narrates for us with just the right amount of snark. He exasperates everyone he comes into contact with, but he delivers when it counts. His editor Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland) at a small Las Vegas newspaper puts Kolchak on the trail of a serial killer.

Kolchak comes to a conclusion that nobody wants to believe because it’s too absurd: the killer is a lunatic who thinks he’s a vampire.

Then, when Kolchak tries to prove his theory, he finds more than he bargained for: surprise, the killer really is a vampire.

Nowadays, that’s maybe the first five minutes of a pilot episode, or maybe the first bit of a feature film. But in 1972, nobody combined naturalistic comedy/drama with the supernatural, certainly not on network television. You either got extreme melodrama with any actual vampires/werewolves/whatnots, or you got what Kolchak initially thought he had: a mentally disturbed person who just imagined being something else.

For those who got to see this wonderful blending of sensibilities – which holds up remarkably well five decades later – at the right moment in their lives, THE NIGHT STALKER remains beloved.

THE NIGHT STALKER spawned a 1973 sequel, THE NIGHT STRANGLER, and then a 1974-1975 twenty-episode series, KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER, both starring McGavin and Oakland. In THE NIGHT STRANGLER, the reporter and his editor have relocated to Seattle after being chased out of Las Vegas, and in the series, they’ve moved again to Chicago.

In the new book KOLCHAK: HAUNTED & HUNTED, author Paul Terry sets Kolchak and Vincenzo in Los Angeles, where they’re now working at the HOLLYWOOD DISPATCH. As always, Vincenzo wants plain old reporting on conventional subjects and, also as always, Kolchak keeps finding himself enmeshed in the uncanny.

KOLCHAK: HAUNTED & HUNTED is a collection of five stories, loosely connected by character, theme and Kolchak’s general work situation, but not so linear that they need to be read in order. Some feature monsters with what might be termed understandable grievances, while the scarier ones are wholly malevolent and satisfyingly creepy.

Terry ably captures Kolchak’s sandpapery voice, wry tone, and willingness to admit terror. While not explicit, Terry also keeps us close to the original NIGHT STALKER’s era, with no cell phones to snap pictures or call for help. At the same time, he avoids stepping to any offensive stereotypes of yore.

There’s a nice mixture of locations. Since this is a book and not a carefully-budgeted television episodic, we can stay out late at night, go underwater, and even visit Paris (for a story that really does have to take place in the City of Light). Terry makes the most of this expansion of geographical territory, without widening the scope so much that it stops feeling like a Kolchak adventure.

There are some odd bits of punctuation here and there, but nothing that interferes with the overall effect. For those who just need the barest nudge to reacquaint themselves with Kolchak again, or even for those who don’t know the source material but enjoy spooky stories, KOLCHAK: HAUNTED AND HUNTED delivers.

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Article: Book Review: KOLCHAK: HAUNTED & HUNTED

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