Tue 13 Oct 2015
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: BART SPICER – Blues for the Prince.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[4] Comments
William F. Deeck
BART SPICER – Blues for the Prince. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1950. Detective Book Club, hardcover reprint, 3-in-1 edition. Bantam #934, paperback, 1951.
This is apparently the second case for private-eye Carney Wilde. When The Prince — Harold Morton Prince — jazz pianist, about sixth best in the country, and composer apparently without peer, is murdered, Wilde is called in to investigate the claim of The Prince’s accused murderer that he, not Prince, had composed most of the music Prince took credit for, particularly “Red Devil Blue,” and the folk operetta Sunset in Harlem.
An admirer of The Prince and also a jazz enthusiast, Wilde takes a personal interest in the case since he doesn’t want The Prince’s reputation besmirched. Too much of an interest, it turns out, as he proves that the accused couldn’t have committed the murder.
A good but not a particularly great case. Still, it has an interesting background. The Prince, his family, Wilde’s client, and other characters are black. Philadelphia in the late ’40s, as was true of most other places, was not a pleasant city if you were black. With music, though, there was no race barrier, nor apparently any race recognition.
The Carney Wilde series —
The Dark Light. Dodd, 1949.
Blues for the Prince. Dodd, 1950.
Black Sheep, Run. Dodd, 1951.
The Golden Door. Dodd, 1951.
The Long Green. Dodd, 1952.
The Taming of Carney Wilde. Dodd, 1954.
Exit, Running. Dodd, 1959.
October 13th, 2015 at 10:46 pm
I haven’t checked, but if the books listed above ever came out in paperback, then I have them all.
What I am embarrassed to admit is that I haven’t read any of them, and I don’t have any idea why not. What’s more, Spicer wrote another half dozen mysteries, and I haven’t read any of those, either.
Since Bill didn’t say anything about Carney Wilde, per se, I went to the Thrilling Detective website, where Kevin Burton Smith has this to say:
“… his blue collar sensibilites make it very clear that Wilde is no self-conscious shining white knight, constantly admiring his chivalry in the reflection of his inferiors, but simply a working man trying to do his job. Issues of being paid or not paid are frequently raised, and his moments of self-doubt are more along the lines of whether he’ll be able to make the rent and not along philosophical lines.Which makes the rather surprising compassion displayed in these books, particularly regarding racial issues all the more impressive.”
For more:
https://www.thrillingdetective.com/wilde.html
October 14th, 2015 at 6:54 am
I’d say the Carney Wilde books are more than just good. They’re at least very good. I never ran across the final one in paperback, but I did find it in hardback. Spicer is yet another unjustly forgotten writer.
October 14th, 2015 at 8:26 am
You’re right about EXIT RUNNING never having come out in paperback. I’m not sure, but I think I also have it in hardcover. I see from abebooks that if anyone would like a copy now, the Detective Book Club included it in one of their 3-in-1 volumes. That would be your best bet, as the only Doff first edition on ABE will set you back $45.
But the real point has to be that you’re right, Bill. I can’t think of many mystery writers with as many books that Spicer wrote (another half dozen besides the Wilde series) who is as unknown today as he is.
October 14th, 2015 at 9:04 pm
Spicer and Wilde border on top notch. This one is very good and has a hell of a reputation, but some of it is based on the fact that it deals with race at all and not in the discomforting manner of Chandler at the top of FAREWELL MY LOVELY.
At the time this was written only Dorothy Hughes had really dealt with race with any sensitivity in the hardboiled school, and other than the Van Dine school it was seldom dealt with at all in genre fiction.
But by all means read Spicer. Wilde grows and changes and by the end of the series owns a successful agency and is no longer a one man operation, he has the same qualities, but he is a different man by then, a progression not always seen in genre series characters. He is one of the more interesting second tier eyes of the era, one I think of in terms of being right in line with Thomas Dewey’s Mac and John Evans Paul Pine, which for me is just below Marlowe and Archer.
Spicer also wrote spy novels about Peregrine (Perry) White that were quite good, bestselling historical novels, and at least one BSN (big sexy novel as Dean Koontz called them) about a trial that I recall. One of the things he brings to the Wilde and White series is that he is not out of the mystery suspense genre per se but a novelist and has a novelist sensibility making his books a bit different than the usual genre book of the era.