TOD
I've had this answer ready since reading the book three months ago. I don't remember now if I had this picture of Harry Stearns in my head when I read the first book last year. I suspect I did, in a vague sense. But as soon as I started this volume, the image was fully formed and there's nothing I could do to shake it. Which is fine, because I wouldn't want to shake it. So are you ready for it? Harry Stearns is.....
Darren McGavin, in his Kolchak character - as Kolchak would appear in his later years, which is not necessarily how Mr. McGavin himself appeared in later years. The appearance, the mannerisms, perhaps with an ironic voiceover, the banter, all of it. I see him driving the Le Mans around L.A. at 25 miles per hour. I hear the vocal inflections in his crusty repartee with Bernice and in his interviewing of people who may or may not be suspects and in dealing with Phil Logan of the LAPD. I even see the older Kolchak savoring his opera collection, which Mr. McGavin might well have done, having had something of a musical performance career himself.
If the Stearns books were to be filmed, the one complication I can see is that Mr. McGavin is dead. Quite dead. And, like I said, I'm picturing a particular character at an age in which we never knew him. But hey.
