Created by Steve Fisher
Pseudonyms include Stephen Gould, Grant Lane
(1912-80)
Although he wrote a ton of crime and detective stories for the pulps (and later for novels and the movies), Steve Fisher actually created relatively few private eye characters.
One of them was JOHNNY RYAN, a New York City dick who’s pretty much a bottom feeder. It’s winter, the snow is falling and Johnny’s sharing a dump of an Manhattan office on lower Fifth Avenue (and a telephone) with four other folks (including a literary agent a collection agent, and a toy retailer), and living off trumped-up divorce cases. He appeared in only one novel, Fisher’s last, Winter Kill (1946). The hardcover billed itself as a “poignant, violent story of death and love and sex.”
The novel was subsequently reprinted the next year in the Summer issue of Triple Detective, which promised “three complete novels” in one issue. The idea of three “complete” novels was popular enough with readers that the magazine survived thirty-five issues, wrapping up in the fall of 1955, long after most pulp mags had assumed permanent room temperature, and later surfaced as a 1951 paperback.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steve Fisher was a US Naval officer who had already peened over 200 articles for various service publications before he mustered out and moved to New York City to become a professional writer. He wrote for the pulps initially, churning out hundreds of tales (including several featuring Doc Savage), but mostly crime and detective stories, before turning to writing novels and screenplays for the movie industry. He worked on the screenplay for Song of the Thin Man and the Chandler adaptation of The Lady in the Lake (yeeesh!), but he’s probably best known for his novel I Wake Up Screaming, which was adapted into the 1941 classic noir film of the same title starring Victor Mature. According to his son, Fisher was responsible for close to 100 novels, over 900 short stories, and 120 movies or television screenplays. Other private eyes include Tony Key and Kip Muldane.
NOVELS
- Winter Kill (1946) | Buy this book
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
