One month ago, our narrator Nick Paulson and his 15 year-old brother traveled to the mountain resort town of Park Village with 75 cents in their pockets to begin a lucrative summer as bellhops during the busy season at a Colorado resort. The monotony of elderly guests and bad tippers is broken one day with the arrival of a rich man named Mr. Rinehart, his driver and his young, sexy arm-candy, Margo. By page seven of the paperback, you know that this dame has femme fatale written all over her.
As the plot thickens, Nick becomes enmeshed in the real agenda behind Rinehart and Margo’s visit to the mountains - Rinehart and his “driver” are planning a heist. Meanwhile, it takes no time at all for the sexual tension between Nick and Margo to reach a boiling point. Can Nick get the girl and the money without being filled with bullet holes?
It’s a shame that Fisher didn’t produce more fiction because he was an excellent writer with a real knack for exciting plotting. His style reminds me of early Lawrence Block, top-shelf Harry Whittington or the best of Gil Brewer. He doesn’t reinvent the genre in Death by the Day, but he executes the crime noir formula with great skill. Some publisher should resurrect this paperback for modern audiences. It hasn’t seen the light of day in 60 years and deserves to be remembered. This one’s an easy, full-throated recommendation.
Caveat:
Neither the cover art nor the back cover’s plot description bear any resemblance to actual events in the novel. Both were certainly created by people who never read the book and were probably recycled from elsewhere.
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I am good friends with his daughter. :)
ReplyDeleteYes, you are!
DeleteI am good friends with his daughter. :)
ReplyDeleteThis is my father's book and I am so touched that you read it and enjoyed it enough to write this wonderful review. His main profession was as a classical violinist. He played around the world with different orchestras and string quartets. He was the second violinist of the University of Alberta String Quartet and was a professor of music there. He passed away in 2013 at the age of 89 and is survived by his wife, my sister, and myself, along with three grandchildren. He was one of the kindest people you could ever hope to meet and was loved by nearly everyone who ever had the privilege to make his aquaintance. Thank you for the memories this conjured up. Regards, Lorna Fisher
ReplyDeleteLawrence Verne Fisher (1923-2013) [dates per Hubin]
ReplyDeleteFrom the back jacket cover of Die a Little Every Day, Random House, 1963, BCE:
LAWRENCE FISHER was born in Vinton, Iowa, and was educated at the University of Oklahoma and the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester. Officially, he is assistant concert master of the Oklahoma City Symphony Orchestra, but over the years he has tried a variety of jobs, including disk jockey for a radio station and college professor. He now devotes all of his time to his music and his writing.