A Black & Evil Truth

Henderson, best-known for his acclaimed Jack Hagee PI series, has written an entertaining horror novel featuring the beloved cult character of Carl Kolchak that opens more strongly than it finishes. Kolchak, who debuted in two novels by Jeff Rice, is best-known from the 1970s TV movies based on them, and a series starring Darren McGavin as the rumpled and rough-around-the-edges journalist who battles the forces of evil as well as the powers that be who seek to suppress the truth. In this novel, Kolchak's long-suffering edi-tor, Tony Vincenzo, dispatches the reporter to West Virginia to investigate a bizarre impossible murder that left a yogurt plant super-visor eviscerated. A cryptic warning delivered to Kolchak's motel raises his suspicions of a government conspiracy, and several more killings, including the massacre of an entire family, create an atmosphere of panic throughout the rural area. The set-up is more prom-ising than the resolution, but the spookiness of the opening sequences suggest Henderson could do better in a future volume, and may be the right author to continue the revised story of Kolchak featured in Frank Spotnits's acclaimed but short-lived 2005 remake.