Wed 28 Aug 2024
A 1001 Midnights Review: STEVE FISHER – Saxon’s Ghost.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[7] Comments
by George Kelley
STEVE FISHER – Saxon’s Ghost. Sherbourne, hardcover, 1969. Pyramid, paperback, 1972.
Steve Fisher had a long career of writing mystery fiction. He wrote for the pulps — Black Mask, Adventure, and Argosy, among many others – and for the leading slick magazines: Esquire, Cosmopolitan, and the Saturday Evening Post. Fisher also wrote more than thirty motion picture screenplays, including Lady in the Lake (1946), Johnny Angel (1945), The Big Frame (1953), I, Mobster (1959), Johnny Reno (1966), and Rogue’s Gallery (1968).
Steve Fisher’s writing style can best be described as hardboiled laced with sentimentality: His characters are prone to strong emotions; his plots are action-packed and melodramatic. But Fisher’s strengths are his professional style and honest presentation of characters pushed to their limits.
The arguable best of Fisher’s twenty novels is Saxon’s Ghost. Joe Saxon. one of the world’s best stage magicians, known as the Great Saxon. finds himself involved in the occult arts when his beautiful young assistant, Ellen Hayes, disappears. Saxon has to use all his arts of legerdemain to arrive at the chilling truth: The ESP powers he and Ellen fooled audiences into believing in are real. When Saxon learns Ellen has been murdered. he uses these ESP powers to reach out to her beyond the grave to deliver a special brand of earthly justice.
Other recommended novels by Fisher include The Night Before Murder (1939) and his most famous novel, Wake Up Screaming (1941; revised edition, 1960), which was filmed in 1942 starring Victor Mature and Betty Grable.
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
August 28th, 2024 at 5:27 pm
I hated I Wake Up Screaming. Then I read the short story “You’ll Always Remember Me” in the ‘Best Noir of the Century’ anthology and I was completely blown away. I’m intrigued by this review….Thanks!
August 28th, 2024 at 7:29 pm
To me, Steve Fisher was a Good but not Great writer. I bought this book new when it came out in paperback. I don’t remember any of the details, but I don’t think I liked it as much as George did when he wrote this review. But who knows? That was quite a while ago. Maybe I ought to read it again.
August 29th, 2024 at 4:09 am
There’s no doubt Fisher had talent, but a lot of his stuff is simply rent-paying, and after reading and enjoying I WAKE UP SCREAMING,I searched in vain for anything nearly as readable.
Maybe I should have kept looking!
August 29th, 2024 at 12:28 pm
Like Tony, I was intrigued by this review…since I have NO recollection of writing it!
August 29th, 2024 at 1:06 pm
Ay, there’s the rub!
But — and this isn’t quite the same question — do you remember reading the book?
For me, I often remember writing an old review of mine, but I don’t recall anything about the book. (Besides what’s in the review, of course.)
August 29th, 2024 at 9:09 pm
Steve, I remember reading Steve Fisher’s books including SAXON’S GHOST. I don’t remember writing this review but it sure sounds like me!
August 30th, 2024 at 9:23 pm
Fisher also penned quite a bit of Naval fiction including a series about a Naval officer detective that inspired one film. His other notable Naval inspired work was the basis for the film DESTINATION TOKYO filmed with Cary Grant, John Garfield, Alan Hale, Dane Clark, Robert Hutton, and John Forsythe among other familiar faces.
Fisher is usually consistent, and his skill is obvious from his long career in Hollywood, but I can’t say any of his stories or novels really stand out in the same way works by most the great hardboiled writers do with the exception of I WAKE UP SCREAMING which is a great title and idea for a noirish hardboiled tale.