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Saxon's Ghost
208 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
47 people want to read
About the author
Steve Fisher
114 books13 followersBorn in 1912 in Marine City, Michigan, Stephen Gould Fisher was thirteen when he sold his first story to a magazine. At sixteen he joined the Marines. He was still in the service when he began to publish stories and articles in US Navy and Our Navy. Discharged from the Marines in Los Angeles in 1932, Fisher stayed in L.A., where he continued to write for US Navy, for which he was paid one cent a word. He was also, by this time, writing for a number of sex magazines.
In 1934 he moved to New York where, despite near destitution, he continued to pursue a career as a writer, and met, for the first time, his friend Frank Gruber.
Prior to his arrival in New York, Fisher had corresponded with Gruber, but the two had never met. It was in the Manhattan office of Ed Bodin, an agent who represented both authors, that the writers finally crossed paths.
They, of course, hit it off immediately, and left Bodin’s office on Fifth Avenue just below 23rd Street, on their way to Greenwich Village where, in Washington Square Park, they talked for three hours about their hopes, ambitions and their writing.
Over the years, the two men would remain close. Gruber, some fifteen years older than Fisher, was from a small farming town in Iowa. Already a prolific pulp writer, he counted amongst his friends the future father of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard (the latter once told Gruber that his shift from science fiction to religious fiction occurred when he was shot in the neck with a poison dart while travelling up the Amazon). In 1941, the same year Fisher published I Wake Up Screaming, Gruber, under the name Charles K. Boston, published an all-but-forgotten Hollywood satire entitled The Silver Jackass. Much lighter, yet no less bitter than I Wake Up Screaming, Gruber’s whodunit was, in many ways, the other side of the coin from Fisher’s novel. At Warners, Gruber would go on to write the screenplay for Eric Ambler’s The Mask of Dimitrios (1946) and Bulldog Drummond. A.I. Bezzerides remembers Jack Warner walking into the writers’ building and finding Gruber, Fisher and himself not at their desks, but on the floor shooting craps. He looked at his three writers, turned and walked away, knowing there was little he could do about such recalcitrance.
Gruber and Fisher constituted something of a two-person mutual admiration society. At a party for the release of The Blue Dahlia, Gruber nearly came to blows with his hero Raymond Chandler when the latter said some unfavourable things about Fisher. The reason for the altercation was that Fisher and Chandler were in dispute over screen credits for The Lady in the Lake. Chandler was convinced that his name should have appeared on the screen as well. Though he defended his friend, Gruber would remain a life-long admirer of Chandler’s writing. Foreshadowing Gruber’s run-in with Chandler, Fisher, hearing someone unfairly criticise one of Gruber’s stories in the Black Mask office, launched such an attack on the unfortunate writer that the editor had to throw the Gruber-critic out of the office and declare him persona non grata at Black Mask.
Recounting his early days as a writer in The Pulp Jungle, Gruber attests to Fisher’s burning ambition to succeed as a writer, a quality which, at times, assumed humorous dimensions. Such as when Fisher wrote to the New York electricity company, which, because of an outstanding bill, was about to switch off his power, asking them how they would feel if they had turned off the electricity on Jack London. He told them that he too would become a famous writer and they would be ashamed of themselves for cutting off his electricity. But cut him off they did, after which Fisher was forced to write by candlelight. In that same book, Gruber goes on to say that Fisher was most adept at writing romance.
In 1934 he moved to New York where, despite near destitution, he continued to pursue a career as a writer, and met, for the first time, his friend Frank Gruber.
Prior to his arrival in New York, Fisher had corresponded with Gruber, but the two had never met. It was in the Manhattan office of Ed Bodin, an agent who represented both authors, that the writers finally crossed paths.
They, of course, hit it off immediately, and left Bodin’s office on Fifth Avenue just below 23rd Street, on their way to Greenwich Village where, in Washington Square Park, they talked for three hours about their hopes, ambitions and their writing.
Over the years, the two men would remain close. Gruber, some fifteen years older than Fisher, was from a small farming town in Iowa. Already a prolific pulp writer, he counted amongst his friends the future father of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard (the latter once told Gruber that his shift from science fiction to religious fiction occurred when he was shot in the neck with a poison dart while travelling up the Amazon). In 1941, the same year Fisher published I Wake Up Screaming, Gruber, under the name Charles K. Boston, published an all-but-forgotten Hollywood satire entitled The Silver Jackass. Much lighter, yet no less bitter than I Wake Up Screaming, Gruber’s whodunit was, in many ways, the other side of the coin from Fisher’s novel. At Warners, Gruber would go on to write the screenplay for Eric Ambler’s The Mask of Dimitrios (1946) and Bulldog Drummond. A.I. Bezzerides remembers Jack Warner walking into the writers’ building and finding Gruber, Fisher and himself not at their desks, but on the floor shooting craps. He looked at his three writers, turned and walked away, knowing there was little he could do about such recalcitrance.
Gruber and Fisher constituted something of a two-person mutual admiration society. At a party for the release of The Blue Dahlia, Gruber nearly came to blows with his hero Raymond Chandler when the latter said some unfavourable things about Fisher. The reason for the altercation was that Fisher and Chandler were in dispute over screen credits for The Lady in the Lake. Chandler was convinced that his name should have appeared on the screen as well. Though he defended his friend, Gruber would remain a life-long admirer of Chandler’s writing. Foreshadowing Gruber’s run-in with Chandler, Fisher, hearing someone unfairly criticise one of Gruber’s stories in the Black Mask office, launched such an attack on the unfortunate writer that the editor had to throw the Gruber-critic out of the office and declare him persona non grata at Black Mask.
Recounting his early days as a writer in The Pulp Jungle, Gruber attests to Fisher’s burning ambition to succeed as a writer, a quality which, at times, assumed humorous dimensions. Such as when Fisher wrote to the New York electricity company, which, because of an outstanding bill, was about to switch off his power, asking them how they would feel if they had turned off the electricity on Jack London. He told them that he too would become a famous writer and they would be ashamed of themselves for cutting off his electricity. But cut him off they did, after which Fisher was forced to write by candlelight. In that same book, Gruber goes on to say that Fisher was most adept at writing romance.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 24, 2021
Here's the 1972 Pyramid mass-market (208 pages). A bit dated-looking, but I kind of dig the groovy psychedelic cover.
Supernatural horror and hardboiled/noir are two of my favorite genres, but there aren't very many novels that combine both, at least from the classic era. John Franklin Bardin, Bruno Fischer, and Cornell Woolrich occasionally slipped over into horror, but the supernatural elements were usually ambiguous or could be explained away through rational means. 1969's Saxon's Ghost, while not exactly "classic" era noir, was at least written by a man who made his name in the old crime pulps and dime novels, so...close enough. And this one's absolutely supernatural.
Instead of a detective as the main protagonist, here we have a world-renowned magician, Joe Saxon -- who does detective-type work on the side, investigating supposed "haunted houses" -- and he seems to have lost his lovely young assistant, Ellen. She was desperately in love with him and, while he liked her, he thought she was much too young and naive for him. Now that he fears she's in mortal danger -- possibly from rival magicians and bounty hunters out to steal and/or sell his magic secrets -- he realizes that he's in love with her as well. And he'll do whatever it takes to find her, traveling all over the US, and dealing with all sorts of shady characters. And it seems she's communicating with him through psychic means. He never before believed in any real supernatural phenomena, as his years of studying all forms of legerdemain has all but convinced him that there is no true magic in the world. But now he just hopes to make it to her before it's too late. No one can be trusted. And things are about to get even weirder.
This was a truly excellent mystery, with more supernatural elements than I dare mention here for fear of spoiling it for others. Just know that Steve Fisher is a master plotter who knows how to keep a story moving at a fast clip. Unlike the typical hardboiled story, it's told in close third-person as opposed to first. But like the best novels in the genre, there are always new revelations coming at the reader, plus a handful of pretty eerie moments. While it's definitely more noir than horror, and the atmosphere and tone are somewhat downbeat and brooding as a result, any fan of either genre should have no trouble getting into this one. Too bad there aren't more of these little hybrids out there. At least we have writers like Laird Barron and Ian Rogers (SuperNOIRtural Tales) out there to scratch that itch these days.
But for now I'm off to find more Steve Fisher novels. Even if they are sans supernatural.
4.5 Stars.
July 26, 2023
Page 32: "Ellen was watching Saxon closely now, but he had palmed the small electro-magnetic ray so adroitly she had been completely unaware when he secreted it back in the lining of his jacket." HUH? Palm and secrete a ray? I went so far as to check a few online dictionaries to search for a hidden meaning of "ray" - to no avail. HELP!
September 3, 2016
A hardboiled ghost story about love and magic? A tough-guy novel about the hunt for a brilliant, resilient woman? A brutal reaffirmation of the wonders of wonder? Whatever this is, it's well worth reading.
January 22, 2024
A very interesting premise to have the story set in the magic performing world. Fascinating from the beginning. Although the book is on the short side, it did get bogged down with excessive description of the confused thoughts going on in the main character’s head. I found those sections a little hard to plod through but overall found this to be a unique story and satisfying mystery.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews