Paperback Warrior Primer - Steve Fisher

Steve Gould Fisher (1912-1980) was a prolific author of westerns, crime-fiction, and pulp stories in the early to mid 20th century. We've reviewed a number of Fisher's literary work including both shorts and full-length original novels. Today's primer looks at Fisher's military career and his contributions to all of the genres we adore here at Paperback Warrior.

Fisher was born on August 29th, 1912 in Marine City, Michigan. At some point his family relocated to Los Angeles so his mother could pursue an acting career. Fisher was enrolled into Oneonta Military Academy. It was there that he apparently sold a story to a small magazine as a teenager. But, he had enough of school and his personal life and ran away at age 16. He would later join the U.S. Navy and was stationed in Honolulu, Hawaii. 

Fisher's writing career took off with two articles that he wrote for the Navy's magazines – Our Navy and U.S. Navy. When he was discharged in 1932, Fisher returned to Los Angeles to continue writing for U.S. Navy. His work was so closely aligned with the Navy that they officially advertised Fisher as “The Navy's Foremost Writer”. 

Outside of the Navy publication, Fisher also started writing original short erotic fiction stories, which was published in 1933 and 1934 in magazine format. Sometime in the late 20s or early 30s, Fisher became married. In 1933, he moved to Greenwich Village in New York and lived close to the offices of Street and Smith, the dominant pulp publisher at that time. Friends and contemporaries stated that Fisher had a rough time as a New Yorker and was evicted several times. It became known that he even pawned his typewriter and used rejected manuscripts at lunch wagons promising that someday he would make it.

Author Frank Gruber moved to New York around the same time so the two of them became lifelong close friends. The friendship pushed Fisher in the right direction. Later, the two became friends with Cornell Woolrich. In 1934, Fisher's first non-erotic or romance story was published. It was a nautical story called “Authorized Mutiny” and it was published in the February 1934 issue of Top Notch. Some resources show his first non-erotic story was “Hell’s Scoop” and it was included in the March 1934 issue of Sure-Fire Detective Magazine. In 1935, lowly publisher Phoenix Press published his romance novel Spend the Night. They also bought and published two more of his novels - Satan's Angel and Forever Glory. 

By 1936 Fisher had become divorced. He then married a Popular Publications Inc. editor named Edythe Syme. By 1937, Fisher was really hitting his stride and providing stories regularly for Black Mask. In 1938, Fisher also refined his romance stories and sold them to the slick magazines like Empire, Cosmopolitan, and Liberty. 

Fisher's pulp career is often highlighted by the characters he created and wrote about. I've highlighted some of the prominent characters:

Captain Baby Face – This character's name is Jed Garrett but he's known as Captain Babyface and he works for the American Special Agent's Corps. His mission in the series is to kill Mr. Death, an evil genius working for Germany. There were ten total stories and they ran January through November of 1936 in the Dare-Devil Aces pulp magazine. The publisher Age of Aces has all ten stories combined into one awesome, 230-page volume and you can obtain it through Amazon HERE. 

Sheridan Doome - Doome is a Lieutenant Commander and chief detective for U.S. Naval Intelligence. His job is to investigate crimes committed on Naval bases and ships. Doome flies a special black airplane and his face is monstrously disfigured from a WW1 explosion. These stories appeared in the back pages of The Shadow Magazine beginning on May 1st of 1935. There were six Sheridan Doome stories in The Shadow Magazine in 1935. These six were the only Sheridan Doome stories published under Steve Fisher's real name. Beginning in 1937, they were all written under the pseudonym Stephen Gould. In the pulp magazine The Shadow, there were 54 total Sheridan Doome stories between 1935 and 1943. Fisher also placed Sheridan Doome in two full length novels - 1936's Murder of the Admiral and 1937's Murder of the Pigboat Skipper.

Big Red Brennan – This character is a U.S. Naval Intelligence agent fighting enemy spies in the U.S. and in Shanghai. Accoring to Spy Guys and Gals, who gather information from The Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes by Jeff Nevins, Big Red Brennan's adversary is a former American Naval Lieutenant who sold out to a spy ring of Chinese and Mongolians. There are 24 Big Red Brennan stories and they ran from October 1936 through December 1937 in a pulp magazine called The Feds. The rest of the series was in the magazine Crime Busters and that ran from February 1938 through May 1939.

Danny Garrett – Garrett is a 13-year old shoe shine boy in New York City that solves crimes and catches criminals. His nickmane is Shoeshine Kid Detective. There were 65 of these stories from 1936 through 1946. Nearly all of these are in The Shadow. Two were in Crack Detective Stories and one in Mammoth Detective. There were even more Danny Garrett stories during that time written by both William G. Bogart and Fisher under the house pseudonym Grant Lane. The character was so popular that it spawned 18 appearances in comic book form beginning with Doc Savage Comics #1 in 1940. 

Tony Key – This character appeared in 12 stories in Detective Fiction Weekly and Black Mask from 1937 to 1941, beginning with “Murder Game–With Mirrors” in Detective Fiction Weekly, May 15, 1937. Key works in Hollywood and poses as a film and television agent. But, his real job is a detective for the film studios. He solves crimes involving producers, actors, and writers. He's described as always wearing flannels, white shoes, a white sweater, and a black coat. He has “patent leather hair.” His secretary and lover is the smart, pretty platinum blonde Betty Gale, and his ally is Mickey Ryan on the Homicide Squad. You can purchase the Tony Key stories in a collection from Black Mask HERE.

Mark Turner – Turner works as captain of the detectives in Honolulu, HI. He’s described as having red hair and a red Vandyke styled beard. Because of his brown eyes offset by red hair, the natives call him Red Eyes. Turner appeared in five stories. They were published in The Mysterious Wu Fang, Mystery Adventure Magazine, and Ten Detective Aces from 1935 to 1937. 

Johnny Connel – Perhaps the shortest lived character, Connel only appears in two stories. The first was “Murder Melody” and it was in Detective Tales June 1941. That same character is in “Blues for a Dead Lady”, which was in Detective Tales March 1951. I couldn't locate any information about this character. 

Fisher wrote about 500 stories for the magazines and pulps but he also wrote a number of full-length novels. His most popular book is probably the 1941 novel I Wake Up Screaming. It's about a promoter who is a suspect in the murder of a starlet. The book was compared to Cornell Woolrich, which makes sense considering Fisher and Woolrich were friends. He even has a character in the book named Cornell as a tribute to his friend. The book became a hit film the same year and kick-started the crime-noir film era. It was even filmed again in 1953 under the same title. With I Woke Up Screaming, Fisher really made a statement that he had moved on from the pulps.    

Fisher authored 16 total full-length novels including No House Limit in 1958, which was later reprinted by Hard Case Crime. 

Fisher moved to Hollywood, CA and began a long-running, highly successful career writing and producing films and television shows. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1944 for his screenplay Destination Tokyo, which was adapted from his novel. He wrote and produced seemingly hundreds of shows and films up until his death on March 27th, 1980 in Canoga Park, CA.

Paperback Warrior Podcast - Episode 95

On Episode 95, we explore author Steve Fisher's pulp titles like Captain Babyface, Sheridan Doome and Big Red Brennan. We also delve into Fisher's full-length novels and his transition into Hollywood. Tom reviews the new Stark House Press reprint of Lorenz Heller's 1959 novel Crime Cop. Eric gets Gothic-crazy in Sanford, Florida and talks about his shopping experience at the Daytona Beach Flea Market. Listen on any podcast app, stream below or download HERE

Listen to "Episode 95: Steve Fisher" on Spreaker.

Storm on the Island

Steve Fisher (1912-1980) was a prolific American author and screenwriter. Fisher cut his teeth on the early pulp magazines before transitioning into full-length novels and screenplays. I've enjoyed his short stories and was happy to discover another of his literary works on Archive.org. The novella is called "Storm on the Island" and it was published in the July, 1938 issue of The American Magazine. 

After her father‘s retirement from the Navy, Myrna invests some of his money into buying the Hawaiian Heaven Hotel off Pearl Harbor shore. She runs the small hotel and serves beer to the sailors who need a midpoint between the water and Honolulu. It’s a quiet, peaceful life until the emergency radio begins announcing that a Navy submarine has become trapped in underwater debris. After three days of monotone and grim announcements, the men on board have begun to lose the remaining oxygen. 

The sub, S14, is stuck on the ocean floor, wedged in discarded wooden wreckage with torpedo tubes that are jammed. Hoping for a rescue attempt, the Navy sends divers Harry Morris and Richard Brennan down to the vessel to attempt to clear the tubes. If they are cleared, the men can be safely ejected. But, the attempt fails and only Brennan makes it back to the surface alive. 

On the last night of the rescue attempt, readers learn that a guest in the hotel has been murdered and their corpse placed in a seldom used wine closet. Who’s dead, who’s the murderer and how is it related to the submarine disaster? The bulk of this complex mystery is brought to life when Brennan checks into the hotel awaiting a Navy request and the obligatory press interviews. 

Fisher’s hotel ensemble is a cast of likely suspects, each possessing a possible motive for murder. It’s a traditional mystery complete with a competent Hawaiian detective named Mulane probing for answers. Brennan and Myrna strike up a romance, but when Myrna’s father is murdered, all fingers point to Brennan as the killer. 

I really enjoyed this short novel, and found that Fisher was really in his element. Fisher himself served in the Navy aboard a submarine stationed in Hawaii, so his writing has a descriptive sense of realism. The romance angle is Fisher’s signature. Combining these two ingredients into a hotel murder mystery was brilliant. 

Storm on the Island is a captivating mystery with unique characters in an exotic location. Even better is that the story exists for free at archive.org HERE

Red is for Courage

Author Steve Fisher's novel “Red is for Courage” was published by Argosy in November, 1943. It was written as a testament to the Red Cross and their sacrifices during WWII. Fisher, known for his pulp runs and military fiction in the 30s, 40s and 50s, had many of his works adapted for film. Arguably the most notable is the 1943 submarine themed “Destination Tokyo” starring Cary Grant. “Red is for Courage” was purchased by 20th Century Fox with the intention of an adaptation called “Red Cross Girl”. From my understanding the film never came to fruition.

In many ways this is a classic love story, a turbulent and rocky romance using WWII battlefields as the backdrop. It's told from the first person perspective of Willie, a Red Cross volunteer who's serving in battle scarred Madrid. Willie is best friends with fellow nurse Tony, who's in love with a female nurse named Noel who in turn loves Willie. This love triangle is the basis of the book. Both Tony and Willie are introduced to a war journalist named Kadi Rogers and then the triangle becomes a rather complicated thing. 

Willie declares his love for Kadi after an eventful and romantic evening. Kadi rejects his advances and soon leaves for Paris. The story then takes a fast track, covering a lot of battles and a whole lot of bandages and blood. Over the course of a few years we follow Willie's progress through the war and his eventual relocation back to New York to become a private practice physician. It's a long but memorable journey following Tony, Willie, Noel and Kadi's wartime service and their eventual post-war lives. 

From a romance genre perspective, this one nails it. But, this is a Men's Action Adventure blog and I'm sure you're all scratching your heads. I will say that there's enough battlefield action here to please genre fans. In fact, the whole climax of the book is a stirring recount of the Battle of Dunkirk, reliving a harrowing quest to ship soldiers across the canal and away from the incoming German forces. This portion is worth the price of admission. Overall, I really enjoyed this story and will probably re-read it at some point.