Bruno Fischer (29 June 1908 – 16 March 1992) was a German-born American author of
weird
Weird derives from the Anglo-Saxon word Wyrd, meaning fate or destiny. In modern English it has acquired the meaning of “strange or uncanny”. It may also refer to:
Places
* Weird Lake, a lake in Minnesota, U.S.
People
*"Weird Al" Yankovic (b ...
and
crime fiction
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, ...
.
Biography
The son of a grocer, Fischer was born in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, on 29 June 1908. Bruno emigrated to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
with his family in 1913, attending high school in
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
. He later attended the
Rand School of Social Science
The Rand School of Social Science was formed in 1906 in New York City by adherents of the Socialist Party of America. The school aimed to provide a broad education to workers, imparting a politicizing class-consciousness, and additionally served a ...
and married Ruth Miller, a secretary, in 1934. Fischer became a sports reporter and then police reporter for the ''
Long Island Daily Press
The ''Long Island Daily Press'' was a daily newspaper that was published in Jamaica, Queens. It was founded in 1821 as the ''Long Island Farmer''. The paper’s founder, Henry C. Sleight, was born in New York City in 1792, and raised in Sag Harb ...
'' (1929–31), following this with stints writing and editing at the ''Labor Voice'' (1931–32), ''Socialist Call'' (1934–36), and ''
Modern Monthly''.
In the
1936 election he ran as a candidate for
New York's 14th district, and in 1938 he ran for the
New York State Senate
The New York State Senate is the upper house of the New York State Legislature; the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Its members are elected to two-year terms; there are no term limits. There are 63 seats in the Senate.
Partisan com ...
(12th district, Manhattan), both times under the Socialist banner.
With journalism providing an unreliable income, at a friend's recommendation Fischer tried his hand at writing for the
pulps. Among the hundreds of pulp titles available at that time, Fischer was taken by the horror/terror titles, the so-called "shudder pulps:" ''
Dime Mystery
''Dime Mystery Magazine'' was an American pulp magazine published from 1932 to 1950 by Popular Publications. Titled ''Dime Mystery Book Magazine'' during its first nine months, it contained ordinary mystery stories, including a full-length n ...
'', ''
Terror Tales
''Terror Tales'' was the name of two United States, American publications: a pulp magazine of the weird menace genre of the 1930s, and a horror comic in the 1960s and 1970s.
Pulp magazine
''Terror Tales'' was originally published by Popular Publ ...
'', ''
Sinister Stories'', and others. He sold his first story immediately, a horror tale ("The Cat Woman", ''Dime Mystery'', November 1936). While he often wrote under his own name, this first story and others came out under the pseudonym “Russell Gray”, a name he had used during his newspaper days when writing two pieces for the same edition. Other pulp stories appeared under the pen name Harrison Storm, but he no longer used this pseudonym after 1943. Initially Fischer became known as a purveyor of stories within the "weird menace" and "defective detective" subgenres, the latter being detectives with distinctive physical flaws.
However, as Fischer recalled, these markets ended quite suddenly:
In 1940 I was living in Florida with my family when the whole terror-horror market collapsed.... I got a letter saying the magazines had folded, and all my unpublished stories were returned. They just stopped, just like that. It was a shock. Just one day the market was gone.
With his original markets gone, he moved to more general detective and crime fiction, with stories appearing in ''
Dime Detective
Dime or Dimes may refer to:
Coins
* Dime (United States coin)
* Dime (Canadian coin)
Acronyms (DIME)
* Dark Internet Mail Environment
* Dense inert metal explosive
* Detroit Institute of Music Education
** DIME Denver, a branch of the Detroit I ...
'',
''Black Mask'', and others.
Ultimately he published several hundred stories,
claiming to have written some two million words of fiction from 1937 to 1941 alone.
Fischer published his first novel, ''So Much Blood'', in 1939.
As the pulps died off in the late 40s and early 50s, novels became his primary output, though several of his short stories still appeared in the digest magazines (like ''Manhunt'' and ''
Mike Shayne
Michael "Mike" Shayne is a fictional private detective character created during the late 1930s by writer Brett Halliday, a pseudonym of Davis Dresser. The character appeared in a series of seven films starring Lloyd Nolan for Twentieth Century Fo ...
Mystery Magazine'') that were the pulps' successor.
Several of his books were published by Dell and
Lion Books
is a 1950s Japanese manga series by Osamu Tezuka. It was published by Shueisha in the '' Omoshiro Book'' as a supplement. The same company published ''Lion Books II'' in ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' in the 1970s, which would commonly be referred ...
, including the popular Ben Helm series of
P. I. novels. Paperback-original publishing house
Gold Medal Books
Gold Medal Books, launched by Fawcett Publications in 1950, was an American book publisher known for introducing paperback originals, a publishing innovation at the time. Fawcett was also an independent newsstand distributor, and in 1949 the c ...
took on Fischer on the recommendation of
John D. MacDonald.
Gold Medal released several of his novels in the 1950s; ''House of Flesh'' (Gold Medal #123, 1950) sold some 1.8 million copies. An early member of the
Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America (MWA) is an organization of mystery and crime writers, based in New York City.
The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday.
It presents the Edgar Award ...
, he was the editor of one of their annual short story collections, 1953's ''Crooks' Tour'', and he is known to have written at least one erotic novel in 1970 (''Domination'', Olympia/Ophelia Press) under the pen name "Jason K. Storm".
In the 1960s Fischer worked as executive editor for
Collier Books
Crowell-Collier Publishing Company was an American publisher that owned the popular magazines '' Collier's'', ''Woman's Home Companion'' and ''The American Magazine''. Crowell's subsidiary, P.F. Collier and Son, published ''Collier's Encyclopedia, ...
and education editor at the Arco Publishing Company.
His last novel was 1973's ''The Evil Days'', written after the demands of his job and a lengthy writer's block had greatly reduced his output. Following this he spent his later years between a summer home in a socialist cooperative community in New York’s
Putnam County (the
Three Arrows Cooperative Society
Three Arrows Cooperative Society is a cooperative summer colony located in Putnam Valley, NY. It was founded in 1936 by members of the Young People's Socialist League, from whence its name and emblem derive. The Society owns 125 acres of land ...
) and the Mexican town of
San Miguel de Allende
San Miguel de Allende () is the principal city in the municipality of San Miguel de Allende, located in the far eastern part of Guanajuato, Mexico. A part of the Bajío region, the city lies from Mexico City, 86 km (53 mi) from Queré ...
, where he sometimes gave lectures to the expatriate retirees about his adventures as a mystery writer.
Nearly blind towards the end of his life, he died of a stroke while on a Mexican vacation with his wife on 16 March 1992.
Noted critic
Anthony Boucher
William Anthony Parker White (August 21, 1911 – April 29, 1968), better known by his pen name Anthony Boucher (), was an American author, critic, and editor who wrote several classic mystery novels, short stories, science fiction, and radio d ...
once wrote that Fischer displayed "a warm understanding of human relationships".
Fischer himself described his "usual manner" of writing as containing "movement and suspense with very little violence" and as being about "ordinary people in extraordinary situations". His novels sold some 10 million copies and his works were translated into 12 languages, but by the time of his death he had largely faded into obscurity like many crime writers of his era.
Modern releases of his books have been made by Stark House Press,
while two volumes of his short story work as Russell Gray have been released by Ramble House.
Bibliography
General novels
* ''So Much Blood'' (1939; aka ''Stairway to Death'')
* ''The Hornet's Nest'' (1944)
* ''Quoth the Raven'' (1944; aka ''Croaked the Raven''; ''The Fingered Man'')
* ''Kill to Fit'' (1946)
* ''The Pigskin Bag'' (1946)
* ''The Spider Lily'' (1946)
* ''The Bleeding Scissors'' (1948; aka ''The Scarlet Scissors'')
* ''The Lustful Ape'' (1950; with Lion Books as Russell Gray; re-released that same year by Gold Medal as Bruno Fischer)
* ''House of Flesh'' (1950)
* ''Fools Walk In'' (1951)
* ''The Lady Kills'' (1951)
* ''The Fast Buck'' (1952)
* ''Run for Your Life'' (1953)
* ''So Wicked My Love'' (1954; a shorter version appeared in ''Manhunt'', November 1953, as “Coney Island Incident”)
* ''Knee-Deep in Death'' (1956)
* ''Murder in the Raw'' (1957)
* ''Second-Hand Nude'' (1959)
* ''The Girl Between'' (1960)
* ''The Evil Days'' (1973)
The Ben Helm series
* ''The Dead Men Grin'' (1945)
* ''More Deaths Than One'' (1947)
* ''The Restless Hands'' (1949; a shorter version first appeared in ''Mystery Book Magazine'', Summer 1949)
* ''The Angels Fell'' (1950; aka ''The Flesh Was Cold'')
* ''The Silent Dust'' (1950)
* ''The Paper Circle'' (1951; aka ''Stripped for Murder'')
* “Dead Men Grin, The” (''Two Complete Detective Books'', Sep 1946)
* "The Quiet Woman" (''Dell Mystery Novels Magazine'', Jan/Mar 1955; re-released in the Oct. 1962 issue of ''Mike Shayne's Mystery Magazine'' as “Death Attends Rehearsal”)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fischer, Bruno
1908 births
1992 deaths
German emigrants to the United States
American crime fiction writers