The Dark Light

Carney Wilde #1

by Bart Spicer

“General” Jackson didn’t look to Carney Wilde like a man who could afford a private detective, but he had the kind of face you don’t see very often, the kind of face you want to help. So Detective Wilde agreed to help Jackson in the case of the missing preacher, Matthew Kimball, whose trail led to strange places—from the shabby mission in the waterfront section known as The Bend, all the way to the city's most exclusive suburb, where rich, eccentric Mrs. Prentice had built a church—The Church of Shining Light—for Matthew Kimball, ex-tire salesman.
As he followed the elusive trail of the missing preacher, Carney Wilde began to learn what sort of man Matthew Kimball was. Some people hated and feared him, as did Mr. Winocur, who claimed his church was “a rich people’s church” where they held “black masses.” Lovely Alicia Prentice “wasn’t sure” about Kimball. Her brother, Colonel Alec, didn’t want to talk about him—or anything else. Dr. Decies, senior elder of the church was a “fanatic,” people said. Kimball’s young protégé, Gerald Dodge, wanted no investigation—at first. And though Mrs. Kimball wept over her husband’s disappearance, her eyes were restless and frightened.
But “General” Jackson believed in Matthew Kimball, said he was a “good man.” That belief cost him his life. Three people were to die before Carney Wilde had the dark answer to the disappearance of the preacher of The Church of Shining Light.

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

Bart Spicer was the pen name of Albert Samuel Spicer. He also wrote four novels as Jay Barbette in tandem with his wife, Betty Coe Spicer. He wrote crime novels and five non-criminous novels. Spicer worked as a radio journalist until 1949, then became a full-time novelist.

Reviews

[Randy · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book by Spicer I've read. I was impressed. For the time it was written, he treats blacks with a dignity I'd not seen in other novels of the era I'd read. There are probably others, though, just as honest.
Carney Wilde is hired to find a missing preacher who'd left for New York for a radio broadcast and never made it.
Before it's over, two murders occur, further muddying the waters.

[Andy Oerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the stuff.

The Dark Light is Chandlerian goodness.

Carney Wilde is a 29-year-old PI in Philadelphia. A black man named Andrew Jackson comes to his office and offers him all the wadded-up money he has—$47–to find a missing preacher. The preacher was somewhat of a rising star with a seemingly sincere but unorthodox approach and has founded The Church of the Shining Light. Think Norman Vincent Peale and you’ll probably see where Spicer was going.

At first Wilde is annoyed, but he goes to the mission where Jackson works and learns enough about the case to get interested. He gets admittedly more interested when a wealthy benefactor of the church (and her attractive daughter) offer to bankroll him.

Wilde’s investigation uncovers three murders, infidelity, blackmail and more, and his testy relationship with the city cop Grodnik is where the book really shines, and more than makes up for a bit of a rough start. The plot is well done and the dialogue is often great.

Spicer’s Wilde is categorized with Robert Martin’s Jim Bennett and Thomas Dewey’s Mac as “sympathetic eyes,” an unofficial, slightly less-hard boiled response to the excesses of Spillane, et al, in the 1950s. But believe me: they’re hard-boiled enough. Marlowe would be proud.

This was the first Wilde book, but the second I’ve read. I thought I liked #2, Blues for the Prince—and I did—but I discern now that the author kind of got in his own way with all the jazz details in that one. It messed with the pacing somewhat and didn’t always ring true.

Dark Light is better, and doesn’t trip up like that. I can’t wait to read #3 in the series: Black Sheep, Run.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: Carney Wilde is hired to find a missing preacher who'd left for New York, but never made it.