Blog From The Bench

"He said he'd come to Las Vegas because he could at least have his choice of several places to get food and other sundries at odd hours during the night when he'd be up and working." -- real estate agent Aline Sedgewick, who unwittingly sold a house to a murderous vampire in "The Night Stalker."

Finished reading the original Jeff Rice novel tonight. It is, of course, the rambling account by reporter Carl Kolchak of a series of strange murders in Las Vegas, which he believes were committed by a vampire. I enjoyed it, mainly for snappy observations and dialogue like the fragment above. Familiarity may not breed contempt, but it takes away some of the surprise value when you've seen this type of story in the long-running "The X-Files" and other similar shows. Still, it's a good page-turner. TV Kolchak fans, take note: the ending here is one that is rather final, indicating that Rice didn't have any long-range plans for Kolchak (although he did write a novelization of "The Night Strangler" TV movie).

While surfing, I found mention of this book as "The Kolchak Papers." My copy, a 1973 paperback with the more familiar title, points out that the TV movie had "75,000,000 viewers -- a television record."