Steve Fisher (1) (1912–1980)

If you love hardboiled crime fiction from the forties and fifties like I do, you will absolutely feast on this Steve Fisher novel. It was originally published in 1941 and immediately made into a hit movie starring Betty Grable and Victor Mature. Later, Fisher updated the novel in 1961, perhaps to appeal to contemporary (at that time) readers. Black Lizard, one of the great modern crime fiction publishing houses, republished it in 1991. No matter which edition you pick up, it is a dark, hardboiled platter of goodness that I really enjoyed. At 157 pages, it is typical of crime novels of the forties and fifties in length.

The basic story is about about a screenwriter (Peg), who falls head over heels for a stunning secretary in the studio where he works. He then conspires with a few other producers and agents to turn the incredible Vicki Lynn into the next star even though that meant she would be escorted around Hollywood by a male star since Peg as a writer wasn't going to dazzle the public. It tops off with a Hollywood murder and a cynical police detective who is going to find a way to make Peg pay for what he did ( if he did it). But, to be honest, it wasn't the plot that fascinated me about this book, although when you get to the part about the girl who was white as marble, with hair splayed out in fine strands of gold, her lips bright red, and the green eyeshadow on her eyelids, you know it's coming when the narrator tells you she was lying still and not breathing, but it is still shocking nonetheless. (all of this is on the back cover of the book in my hand).

It was the pulpy writing that I really enjoyed and there were sentences and paragraphs that were so juicy that I had to go back and read them more than once to properly savor them. Fisher simply uses his words to capture the mood of the times and it works like a gem. You can feel Peg's obsession with Vicki Lynn and his passionate affair with her and his determination to give her the gift of stardom.… (meer)

If you love hardboiled crime fiction from the forties and fifties like I do, you will absolutely feast on this Steve Fisher novel. It was originally published in 1941 and immediately made into a hit movie starring Betty Grable and Victor Mature. Later, Fisher updated the novel in 1961, perhaps to appeal to contemporary (at that time) readers. Black Lizard, one of the great modern crime fiction publishing houses, republished it in 1991. No matter which edition you pick up, it is a dark, hardboiled platter of goodness that I really enjoyed. At 157 pages, it is typical of crime novels of the forties and fifties in length.

I generally don't like Hollywood industry crime novels. Too often, the authors tend to want to impress the reader with how much they know about Hollywood and how well connected they are. Here, however, the setting works just right. The basic story is about about a screenwriter (Peg), who falls head over heels for a stunning secretary in the studio where he works. He then conspires with a few other producers and agents to turn the incredible Vicki Lynn into the next star even though that meant she would be escorted around Hollywood by a male star since Peg as a writer wasn't going to dazzle the public. It tops off with a Hollywood murder and a cynical police detective who is going to find a way to make Peg pay for what he did ( if he did it).

But, to be honest, it wasn't the plot that fascinated me about this book, although when you get to the part about the girl who was white as marble, with hair splayed out in fine strands of gold, her lips bright red, and the green eyeshadow on her eyelids, you know it's coming when the narrator tells you she was lying still and not breathing, but it is still shocking nonetheless. (all of this is on the back cover of the book in my hand).

It was the pulpy writing that I really enjoyed and there were sentences and paragraphs that were so juicy that I had to go back and read them more than once to properly savor them. Fisher simply uses his words to capture the mood of the times and it works like a gem. You can feel Peg's obsession with Vicki Lynn and his passionate affair with her and his determination to give her the gift of stardom.… (meer)

I guess the first question many would ask is why bother read these old pulp fiction novels. Nostalgia, plot, setting, voyeurism, writing style, pictures of busty blonds on the cover; all of these I suppose. For lack of a better reason, I guess it would be the same reason why some people watch football. They provide easy, often thoughtless, entertainment.

That being said, Hard Case Crime, reissued a whole series of novels from the fifties and early sixties, most of which might be defined as noir, or representing the underbelly of American culture.

No House Limit portrays Joe Martin, owner of an independent, i.e., not controlled by the syndicate, casino in Las Vegas. The syndicate has vowed to shut him down and their approach is to hire a well-known gambler, Bello, to gamble him out of existence. An implausible scenario, certainly. What makes the reader want to continue is the atmosphere, the ambiance, the recreation of what we think a fifties casino might be like. Note I suggested it’s what we imagine it might be like. Whether it was or not, is really irrelevant to me. It’s a story and an intriguing one that allows the reader to lose himself in another world.

Written by Steve Fisher who, according to a postscript by his son wrote close to one hundred novels in the fifties. It has a very archaic flavor with stock characters straight out of the movies for which Fisher wrote many scripts.

Bello was patterned after the infamous Nick the Greek, a rather pathetic gambler who was introduced to Michael Fisher by his father. Nick once said he had won and lost close to $500 million in his lifetime and what really made him pathetic in Michael’s eyes were the boxes of letters Nick kept in his garage from people who might enclose $5 or $10 and ask Nick to gamble it for them in hopes he would strike it rich for them to help pay their medical bills or save their home.

I certainly learned a lot about craps.… (meer)