Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Night Stalker | 1973 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 2 | The Night Strangler | 1974 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 3 | Fever Pitch | 2003 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 4 | Lambs to the Slaughter | 2003 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 5 | Devil in the Details | 2003 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 6 | Get of Belial | 2003 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 7 | Pain Without Tears | 2004 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 8 | Kolchak the Night Stalker Volume 1 | 2004 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 9 | Kolchak: The Night Stalker Chronicles | 2005 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 10 | Terror Within | 2006 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 11 | Bare Bones | 2006 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 12 | A Black & Evil Truth | 2007 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 13 | The Lovecraftian Horror | 2007 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 14 | The Kolchak Papers | 2007 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 15 | Sound of Fear | 2008 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 16 | The Rise & Fall of Carl Kolchak | 2009 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 17 | Cry Of Thunder | 2010 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 18 | Compendium | 2011 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 19 | The Lost World | 2012 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 20 | Kolchak and the Lost World | 2012 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 21 | Necronomicon | 2012 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
| 22 | Passages of the Macabre | 2016 | Max Allan Collins | Buy |
The Kolchak: The Night Stalker series follows reporter Carl Kolchak, who keeps stumbling onto supernatural crimes that nobody else will believe. The character first appeared in Jeff Rice’s novel The Night Stalker (1973), which was adapted into a hugely popular TV movie and then a short-lived but influential television series. The Night Strangler (1974) continued the story.
After a long gap, Moonstone Books revived the character starting in 2003 with new novels, anthologies, and comics. These later entries, with 20 books published between 2003 and 2016, expanded the Kolchak mythology with stories involving Lovecraftian horrors, supernatural creatures, and occult conspiracies. Max Allan Collins contributed to the series alongside other writers, keeping the spirit of the original character alive across multiple formats including novels, anthologies, and graphic novel collections.