In January of 1972, ABC first aired the made for television movie The Night Stalker. It was based on Jeff Rice’s unpublished novel The Kolchak Papers, which was adapted for tv by Richard Matheson. In The Night Stalker, newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak is investigating a series of murders in Las Vegas in which women are discovered dead and drained of blood, strange puncture marks evident on their necks. Kolchak eventually discovers that the killer is a vampire.
At the time, The Night Stalker was the highest rated television movie of all time, and Matheson won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar award for Best TV Feature or Miniseries Teleplay. A sequel tv movie called The Night Strangler aired in 1973, followed by the series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, which aired on ABC from 1974 – 1975. In the series, Kolchak investigated cases of a paranormal/supernatural nature, involving werewolves, aliens and even Jack the Ripper.
The X-Files creator Chris Carter was heavily inspired by the series, so if you loved Mulder, Scully and The X-Files, you have Kolchak to thank. The X-Files producer Frank Spotnitz rebooted the series in 2005, calling it Night Stalker in 2005. Unfortunately, it was pitted against C.S.I., and only six of the ten episodes were aired. A year later, the entire reboot series aired on Sci-Fi Channel.
Because the two movies, Jeff Rice’s novel was finally published as a mass-market paperback. It was re-titled The Night Stalker, and Rice penned a novelization based on the screenplay a year later. In 2007, Moonstone republished both books as an omnibus titled The Kolchak Papers, and Moonstone Books has since produced comic books based on Kolchak. It's a mark of the high quality of The Night Stalker that the series, movies and books have stayed relevant after all these years. The original series can currently be streamed on Peacock for those who want to check it out.
Which brings us to the present. Editor/writer James Aquilone (a Bram Stoker award recipient) and Monstrous Books have teamed up to record an audiobook of Rice’s original novel. The audiobook will be narrated by actor William Katt, who is best known from his appearance as good guy Tommy in 1976’s Carrie and as the title character of the popular early 80s series The Greatest American Hero.
Katt said, “It was a humbling experience working in the shadow of Jeff Rice and Darren McGavin!” William Katt said. “The cult classic Kolchak: The Night Stalker laid the groundwork for so many shows that followed—including The Greatest American Hero and so many others that borrowed generously and paid homage to the amazing world of Carl Kolchak!”
Monstrous is also publishing a print deluxe edition of Kolchak: The Night Stalker that includes a new foreword by David Dastmalchian (Late Night with the Devil), an afterword by writer/producer Rodney Barnes and an essay about Jeff Rice by Mark Dawidziak (The Night Stalker Companion). The cover art was created by Russ Braun (The Boys).
This “definitive edition” of Kolchak: The Night Stalker published on February 11, and is also available as both an ebook and a trade paperback.