Fools Walk In / So Wicked My Love by Bruno Fischer with an introduction by Nicholas Litchfield

Bruno Fischer’s Wicked Fools

Bestselling author Bruno Fischer (1908 – 1992) was a highly prolific writer during The Golden Age of pulp magazines. I think he pounded out around five hundred stories in the 40s and 50s. And there were no AI-powered writing tools to help him out. He didn’t even have an electronic typewriter. His work could be found in magazines like Black MaskManhunt, and Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine.

Fischer started out as a newspaper reporter (a sports writer, no less) and then became a book reviewer, a magazine editor, a contributor to weekly magazines, and, ultimately, a fiction writer. (On a personal level, his biography certainly has a familiar ring.) Timing is everything, and Fischer’s dedication to writing genre fiction, repeatedly appearing in top-selling magazines, saw him emerge as a top-tier crime fiction writer.

Let me be clear: Fischer was a successful novelist before Fawcett Publications approached him. But when their new paperback imprint Gold Medal Books published his novels, Fischer’s work sold in the tens of thousands. House of Flesh, the first of his paperback originals for the publisher, hit sales of around 1.8 million. He wrote nine more for Fawcett, each garnering good reviews and all worth seeking out.

This month, Stark House Press reissued two of Fischer’s paperback originals from the Fifties—Fools Walk In, published in 1951, and So Wicked, My Love, from 1954. The novels are essentially two variations on a theme. The first is a bizarre and twisty drama wherein a college professor gets involved with a gang of thieves, and the latter is a powerful and extremely well-written love story with darkness and villainy at its core. My essay, “Fischer’s Foolish Teacher and the Wicked Redhead,” introduces the collection. 

You can purchase the volume Fools Walk In / So Wicked, My Love on Amazon or Barnes and Noble using the links provided. Need further persuasion: Paperback Warrior reviewed this volume on January 8th, in which they described So Wicked, My Love as “so wickedly good.” Alas, they also referred to my contribution as “an informative introduction by Nicholas Littlefield.” I’m seriously considering changing my name, as I rather prefer that spelling. (Review URL: https://www.paperbackwarrior.com/2025/01/fools-walk-in.html)

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *