Max Willi Fischer
MaxWilli.com
2024
Born in Akron, Ohio into an immigrant family seeking new opportunity in America after World War II, Max Willi Fischer was raised in a village named after an exotic North African seaport—Mogadore, Ohio. With such a background, little wonder Max grew up with an inborn curiosity about history.
After gaining bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Akron, he spent four decades as a classroom teacher where he realized that history should be a vibrant, well-told story. His goal in writing historical fiction is to engage adolescents (and adults) with an exciting, yet accurate, view into our nation’s past. He enjoys the discovery of research to ensure that, while his characters are for the most part fictitious, his settings are based in the reality of the era on which he writes, immersing readers in a yesterday of long ago.
Retired, Max lives with his wife and trusted four-legged friends Kole, Bunnie, Lucy, and Izzy.
Hobbadehoy Rising
An orphaned teen in the notorious Five Points district of lower Manhattan in 1854, Pencil’s cursed to scavenge the unforgiving streets where trust is a stranger. Even as slavery has divided the nation, the good Pencil comes across is as rare as a precious gem buried in the manure-strewn streets of Gotham. The shady adults who surround him believe he’s a “hobbhadehoy,” a youth who hasn’t quite reached manhood. Despite years of neglect, he hasn’t lost his empathy for others and a fledgling sense of justice. As the lieutenant of a pack of street rats, he craves greater control of his life. His luck finally runs out when through someone’s treachery, he faces significant prison time.
Pencil’s grasps another opportunity when he’s shipped off to Ohio on one of the first “orphan trains.” Life on the farm proves to be a different challenge under the demanding, and occasionally drunken, thumb of his new guardian. Ultimately, he’s forced to flee, a much stronger physical specimen than when he arrived.
Pencil ends up in Cleveland, where a daguerreotypist takes him under her wing. She teaches him about capturing images on glass and copper while trying to impress upon him the importance of trust. Encounters with corpses, kidnappers, and grave robbers test his acceptance of the idea … and justice.
American Brush
It’s 1942, and seventeen-year-old Lud Mueller is an All-American boy. He’s got it all—looks, athletic ability, popularity and the sweetest girl between Chicago and New York. Now, the only country he’s ever known has a plan to tear his life to pieces without giving him a fighting chance. The clouds of fear have gathered into the storms of bigotry throughout the United States. Innuendo has replaced due process.
Labeled a “dangerous enemy alien” in his hometown, Lud Mueller learns his deliverance depends upon his wit trumping his brawn. Interned in the Texas desert, he and his family become pawns in a secret World War II strategy. This isn’t what he expected for his senior year of high school.
While a few Nazi wannabes try to make life miserable for him and his family, Lud finds romance in the Texas heat only for it to be scorched by the government. When the war ends, Lud has changed, but the government’s wishes for him have not.
Separation of families is nothing new in the history of American government. American Brush-Off is based upon the internment of thousands of legal German aliens and German-Americans during World War II.
Revelations From the Dead: Chronicles of the Night
In an era where the void of science is filled with superstition, some believe the “Night Waster” preys upon the blood of the living to keep the dead alive. Thomas Sullivan, a cabinetmaker’s apprentice in northeastern Connecticut, helps the Shaffer family confront the ravages of the Night Waster while dealing with his own father’s rejection of him. The lung disease, consumption, and the economic Panic of 1837 are making life a trial for his master’s family as well as stirring the town’s paranoia. The mystery deepens when a family Bible reveals two Spanish doubloons. With the murder of a banker and covert interlopers probing for answers, suspicion in a local legend renews—the village pariah knows of the lost treasure of Benedict Arnold’s ill-fated Quebec raid.
The tighter the screws turn upon the Shaffers, the greater their desperation becomes to save life and occupation. Thomas asserts himself and teams with the region’s newest minister to uncover the truth behind the legend of Arnold’s treasure. Together, they must solve the murder and come face to face with the Night Waster.