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Batman Novels

Batman: To Stalk a Specter

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Worried about the possible escape of the notorious Latin American drug lord they have captured, the leaders of Gotham City are relieved when Batman steps in to battle the drug lord's allies

249 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

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About the author

Simon Hawke

89 books239 followers
Also published as J.D. Masters.

He was born Nicholas Valentin Yermakov, but began writing as Simon Hawke in 1984 and later changed his legal name to Hawke. He has also written near future adventure novels under the penname "J. D. Masters" and mystery novels.

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5 stars
18 (17%)
4 stars
31 (29%)
3 stars
38 (36%)
2 stars
14 (13%)
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4 (3%)
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
Profile Image for Shaun Stanley.
1,306 reviews
January 21, 2025
4.5 stars rounded down to 4.

Batman: To Stalk a Specter is a novel written by Simon Hawke. It was published in February 1991 by Warner Books.

A South American drug lord and dictator by the name of Desiderio Garcia has been captured by U.S. forces. He awaits his highly anticipated trial in Gotham City where a secret witness will be the final nail in his coffin. But when the world’s top assassin arrives in Gotham City and holds the city ransom for the release of Garcia, he also sets his eyes on the one man who could possibly stop him, the Batman.

The Batman Murders was a fairly straight forward story that could have easily been a mediocre comic so I was expecting the same with To Stalk a Specter. I also was not familiar with the author and knowing from the back of the book that it was going to be an original villain, I thought I was going to get another mediocre story.

I was wrong.

This book had me captivated from start to finish. I’m a pretty slow reader but I finished this book in just over a day. The book is a capsule in time and took me back to suspense novels written in the 1980s such as Michael Crichton’s Red Sun and Robert Ludlum’s Bourne trilogy. This Batman is from a more grounded world and goes into details about Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and The Specter’s pasts; the building of the Batcave and how Bruce kept it secret; and weapons and tech that Batman created and uses. It all adds to further insights and motivations of the characters that I really enjoyed. It also touches on comic arcs such as Year One to help keep the story in canon. One of my favorite parts of the book was a relationship that Batman has with a Gotham City martial arts sensei that he goes to for advice and a sparring partner.

The only part that had me disappointed was the ending. The final fight ends in a cheap manner that felt unbecoming. That ended up decreasing my rating from an otherwise fantastic Batman story.
Profile Image for Craig.
6,335 reviews177 followers
April 28, 2020
This is a pretty good Batman novel that showcases his detective and crime fighting talents much more than the superhero aspect. It's not a great or even particularly memorable suspense/action story, but does include some interesting detail and speculation on the Bat-infrastructure.
Profile Image for John.
1,458 reviews36 followers
January 21, 2016
After being disappointed with Craig Shaw Gardner's THE BATMAN MURDERS (i.e., the Batman prose novel preceding TO STALK A SPECTER), and having never heard the name Simon Hawke before, I was floored by how much I enjoyed this one.
To some extent, TO STALK A SPECTER taps into what I enjoyed so much about the movie BATMAN BEGINS. More specifically, I'm talking about a certain sense of realism that manages, however slightly, to ground Batman in the real world. Sure, BATMAN BEGINS did it a lot better, but credit goes to TO STALK A SPECTER for doing it all the way back in the early 90's. For example, Hawke bothers to explain how the Batcave was built and successfully kept secret. He tells us the models of the guns that characters use, and he explains some of the technology behind Batman's wild-looking vehicles. He also doesn't let any of his characters say or do anything particularly cheesy--no small feat in a novel of this stripe.
Of course, I might be giving Simon Hawke altogether too much credit. Since I'm not a big comic book reader, I have no way of knowing to what extent Hawke borrowed ideas and details from other writers. All I can say is that the book was very well-written for this sort of thing, and far more engrossing than I expected.
The villain of this piece is a professional assassin who uses terrorist tactics to flush out his intended targets. He is a far more realistic type of character than, say, the Penguin or the Riddler, and, the question of how to respond to acts of terrorism is so topical that the book never feels dated, despite the Ross Perot reference and the fact that Batman still uses VHS.
Admittedly, though, all those pages of backstory would make pretty dull reading for anyone not a big fan of the DC universe...as well as any true DC fan already well-acquainted with these characters' histories. As for myself, although I was bored by the exploration of Bruce Wayne's background (too familiar), I enjoyed all the stuff about Alfred and Commissioner Gordon.
A lot of this background information comes right at the beginning of the book, meaning that it gets off to a very slow start. There's very little action to speak of, but the level of collateral damage being inflicted (and Batman's anguished reaction to it all) make the second half fairly intense.
I only have one major complaint, and it has to do with a confrontation between Batman and Specter. In one scene, Specter stands over the fallen Batman, ready to deal him the finishing blow, when, out of nowhere, Batman's life is saved thanks to some extremely good luck involving a bat. When authors resort to such pathetic tactics in order to extricate the hero from a deadly situation, I consider it cheating. That scene left such a bad taste in my mouth, I almost knocked a star off my overall rating.
TO STALK A SPECTER is not an exceptional thriller by ordinary standards, but it is an exceptional Batman novel. For that reason, I'm willing to rate it higher than it probably deserves.
Profile Image for Matt.
30 reviews1 follower
February 27, 2020
BATMAN: TO STALK A SPECTER is the second book of a series of three novels printed back in 1991. I've actually been reading them out of order, but it's okay, as they're not at all connected and are even written by different authors.
Simon Hawke weaves a pretty awesome Batman tale. His characterizations are all spot on. His use of Batman's history (particularly the events of YEAR ONE) is particularly fun. The way he describes and explains the science of Batman's gadgetry is fun. He's got a great talent of introducing different citizens of Gotham and even the city itself as character.
Specter is an original villain created just for this novel. He's an assassin that's particularly sinister in his use of terroristic tactics to lure out his targets. This, of course, leaves Batman quite pissed off.
My only real issue was in the final pages of the novel. After building Specter up to be this total badass, calculating criminal mastermind, he gets his ass kicked in a rather silly, nonsensical way. Ultimately, it felt the story feeling rather anticlimactic.
The best part of this novel? There's a scene where Batman abducts a witness to provide better protection than the police or FBI possibly could. It was the pure badassery you'd expect for the Batman.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Stanislav.
40 reviews
October 26, 2017
"To Stalk a Specter" is one of the few novels written about the Dark Knight that do him justice. Given the origin story of the character, and the nature of his quest, he could only exist in either the "Private Eye" or the "Noir" subcategories of the crime genre. I will try to build a case for that later.

There are so many incarnations and iterations to this character. The latest franchises are even turning him to a mechanized-superhuman-cyborg who shoots concussion rockets out of his robotic forearm. Also drives tanks around cities and occasionally calls on alien friends who reside at his private space station. I find those incongruous and ridiculous. (DC games, justice league, latest Harley Queen film)

The Batman is an alternate ego, conceived of a childhood trauma, which was caused by a crime. As a result, the protagonist dedicates his life to "fight" crime, in the city where the original crime took place. The repetition of the word "crime" doesn't necessary anchor Batman in the crime genre, but this is only halfway through my case. The original stories of the masked hero were titled: Batman: The Greatest Detective. This is because of his method of "fighting" crime. Since one man cannot police, survey and control an entire city, the character instead investigates crimes that already took place, and then stops the villains before they causes any more damage. And since he is not a part of any government or organization, he does so with his own resources. Much so as a Private Eye.

However these two subcategories of the crime genre, Private Eye and Noir, are not similar, but actually diametrically opposed. Despite this, the Caped Crusader fits well in both. Solving the horrible crimes that occur in Gotham while maintaining the ethical high-ground is an indivisible part of the character. That works well in a Private Eye novel, where there is a heroic hero in the center. But in Noir there is no heroic figure and no happy ending. Only a protagonist that is slowly drowning by his own downfalls in a cynical world, and in the end ultimately looses. Although story-to-story the Batman wins the day and saves Gotham, there is a well of nihilism that is seeded in the core of the character's origin story. He is born out of suffering, his motivated by the pain of his loss, his quest is impossible to achieve, the city is dark and cynical, and the forces that drive him will never leave him, but will inevitably consume him instead. If ever his story arc is taken to the end, it can never have a happy ending.

When I started with the statement, that this novel does the Batman justice, this is exactly what I meant. That the character is positioned in the perfect center of the genre, while at the two opposites lie the Private Eye and the Noir sub-genres. It is this yin-yang-like dualism that give the Batman his own unique originality.

I would also like to make a case that the Batman does not belong in a story setting past the year 1990: Trough his company "Wayne Tech.", he has a technological edge, which is one of his preternatural powers, and a large part of this character's concept. The batcomputer and the batmobile where science fiction at the time the Batman has been first invented but in our technologically advanced time they seam vastly unremarkable. Despite this, they can very well compliment a detective story, while the orbital stations and private tanks which I mentioned above, not so much.
Profile Image for J.B. Mathias.
938 reviews3 followers
June 19, 2025
The book starts out great if you've never heard of Batman before, but if you had it reads like pulling teeth. This book is the second part of a loosely connected but standalone series and the book that came before it did not drag through the origins of all the characters as much as this book did. Granted he gets the origin right but we don't need a thorough apologetics of Batmans origin to start a Batman story, anyone picking up the book is familiar with Batman.

For the most part it's a pulpy cliche and derivative story but one that I think gets the characters right. It shows a few different sides of Batman and does a decent job of developing some characters and providing some quality human moments in such a short and shallow novel. That being said I didn't care for the character Specter it's an unoriginal name and sounded far too much like a ripoff of Deathstroke just done in a less interesting way. And speaking of ripoffs...

Book introduces a character name sensei Sato who is a martial arts master who came to America from Okinawa after fighting in the Japanese military. A man who trains the youth of the community in martial arts but doesn't bother with the concept of black belt or brown belt because "belts are just for holding up your pants" Gee that sounds so familiar, not only does he conceptually ripoff Mr Miyagi and not only does he not even bother to change up the details of his backstory in the slightest...even naming the same city Miyagi was from...but he literally rips a line from the movie. This has got to be the most egregious and embarassing examples of plagiarism I've ever seen. This was written well after Karate Kid came out but before it was really established as a cross generational cult hit...and it was also released before home computers with internet became a mainstream thing. Dude really thought nobody would notice or care if he just almost word for word copied a character from a movie he watched in the 80's.

Overall it was fine it was hackneyed and there was a lot i didn't like about it but it wasn't terrible, it had it's moments and was true to the characters.
Profile Image for Артюхин Алексей.
Author 27 books
November 12, 2024
The Unexpected Batman-007
It's a great piece, as far as I'm concerned.
Since it was in the same book with Batman and Batman Returns, you can't help but compare these novels. However, "On the Trail of the Spectrum" is clearly different from the first two, both in writing style, narrative, and even the world in which the Dark Knight exists here.
The world of espionage comes to the fore, an elusive secret agent who, at first it seems, finally deserves to meet Batman and is not inferior to him in any way. It doesn't leave the feeling that you get a national hodgepodge from different genres. There is a thriller, an action movie, a drama and even love. Everything is flavored with interesting fights, chases and a detective component.
Reading this book, I found myself thinking that I was not reading about one of the most famous characters in DC comics, but about the famous secret agent from the pen of Ian Fleming. I even turned it over on the cover a couple of times to make sure that it was still a book about Batman.
A good and interesting novel, easy to read, it was difficult to break away. The author showed the famous Bat from a completely different angle.
9 out of 10
6 reviews
August 10, 2021
I came across this book years ago as a kid in the library. I picked it up as an adult and was not disappointed.
The Batman faces off with an international assassin, who has taken a contract to take out a government witness. Who has taken to terrorist bombings to intimidate Gotham City police and the FBI to release a Latin American drug lord. Things take a turn when Batman gets involved.
This story does not contain Batman's gallery of villains, but creates a cunning and realistic assassin/terrorist, known professionally as the Specter. Who takes Batman to wire for a big showdown.

Simon Hawke does take time in the novel to give detailed background of Bruce Wayne's beginnings as Batman as well as Commissioner Gordon's time as a cop in Chicago. This novel was written on the heels of Tim Burton's Batman and goes for a gritty feel. It strangely has echoes of Dark Knight Rises. A decent read.
14 reviews
March 29, 2022
A fun little old school Batman tale.

I liked that this wasn't too steeped in the greater mythology of the comics but I think at times the writer tried to stay too true to the real world because when something more comic book-y showed up like the Batcopter, it seemed very out of place.

While this wasn't "must read" for Batman fans, I would recommend this to someone just looking for more Bat-content because it is pretty enjoyable.
Profile Image for Tessa.
240 reviews19 followers
March 31, 2020
1.5 Stars?

Dime romance novel but make it Batman and everyone else on earth thinking about his "biceps like softballs" (LITERAL QUOTE)
Profile Image for Michael P..
Author 3 books74 followers
August 15, 2012
Simon Hawke (pen name for Nicholas Valentin Yermakov) wrote some mystery novels on Shakespearean themes with Shakespeare as a character. Before reading those, I wanted to read some of his earlier work to have a feel for Yermanov/Hawke as a writer. After this novel, I may leave his Shakespeare mysteries unread.

This story could have told in 50-60 pages, and it would be much better. Any single sentence is direct and readable, but the book amounts to nearly 200 pages of filler: scenes, often handled through expository dialog, that fill in background for the characters, motives, attitudes, and similar needs best handled thorough action. You can quite literally skip a selected 175-200 pages of this book and follow the story, you just need a sentence or paragraph here and there. The last chapter (there is also an epilogue) is the only one that can stand pretty much intact. There is a terrible narrative decision involving a bat, but it is otherwise well done. If only that were true for the rest of the book.

Hawke is prone to slip into cliché, “I assure you,” is especially repetitive, and the final confrontation between the protagonist and the antagonist is obvious from the start. Here is a spoiler. If the antagonist can figure out the Batman’s identity so easily, why hasn’t the police department, the FBI, and the press? It is better not to go there than to raise that question, but Hawke lacks judgment and goes directly there. It does contribute to the nice ending. Still, this is a bad, bad book.
Profile Image for Alexander Draganov.
Author 30 books154 followers
June 8, 2014
Hardcore action thriller, which could serve as a direct sequel to the graphic novel "Batman: Year One". The Dark Knight faces a terrorist, similar to the Jackal in a thrilling story in which nobody in Gotham is save. The worldview of the author, which shares the almost fascist vision of Frank Miller, is a little bit unpleasant sometimes, but overall the story is a must for Batman fans and that's why it's a pity that it is almost impossible to find.
Profile Image for Anastasia Floka.
2 reviews1 follower
April 5, 2017
started out ok and entertaining but quickly got boring, tiring and generic. also quite badly written it feels like the author is trying too hard and has to justify every detail in the book
Profile Image for Eric Maskell.
Author 1 book
October 26, 2011
It was pretty good. I could almost feel the Batman's angst at the loss of so many lives and feeling helpless but again I feel the ending was a little abrupt.
Profile Image for Poovy.
46 reviews
February 19, 2014
Not bad. I like that we get to see more of the detective side of batman.
Profile Image for Beau Johnston.
Author 5 books45 followers
March 10, 2014
You'd probably be lucky to find this book nowadays; but if you do see a copy, pay the asking price and take your new-found treasure home.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews

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