For the cheap price of $8 I recently bought a signed copy of Erika Holzer’s An Eye for an Eye, first published back in 1993 by Tor Books. This novel also was the basis for a major motion picture of the same name, thought I’d never come across it until now. Holzer apparently was a close associate of Ayn Rand. Erika Holzer was born Phyllis Tate, received her law degree and married Mark Holzer, also a lawyer, and at some point after her marriage changed her name to “Erika.” In the 1960s the Holzers were students of Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, and Mark Holzer became Rand’s personal attorney. Erika Holzer’s first novel, Double Crossing (1984) was a finalist for the Prometheus Award in 1984 (although the publication date is 1980). She died in 2019 at the age of 83 or 84, but I’ve only found two novels under her name.
Her second novel, An Eye for an Eye (1993) is a vigilante story. Well, that’s according to the dust jacket. I’ll see how it goes, as I’ve not yet read the book. I do own Double Crossing, which I bought some time in the 1980s; my copy is battered, torn, and price clipped. I can’t remember from where I acquired it, nor much about it since I read it back then, but I recognized the name when I came across An Eye for an Eye.
My copy of An Eye for an Eye is signed by Holzer, dated May 1st, 1993. She appears to only have written two novels, with 13 years between them. If she switched careers from law to writing due to Rand’s influence, a couple of novels is not a significant result. I was disappointed to learn there were only two novels under her name, but sometimes that happens.
