On February 15, 1978, writer Bart Spicer, 59, died at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Tucson, Arizona from throat cancer. Ill for some time, he’d been a heavy smoker (the protagonist in Spicer’s Kellogg Junction joked about a cancer cure if he ever got sick). Spicer’s cremated remains were scattered somewhere in Tucson. His wife, Betty Coe Spicer, and stepdaughter, Nancy Althoff, survived him. He’d been born Albert Samuel Spicer on April 13, 1918 in West Virginia (biographies report Richmond, Virginia). Preferring "Bart," Spicer legally changed his name in 1964.

Bart Spicer’s parents were Ethel Liddy Spicer and Samuel Spicer. He had two sisters (one named Joan) but no brothers. He spent his childhood in various locations throughout the U.K. and U.S. Later Spicer attended Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, where he played such sports as football, track, and fencing.

After leaving college and prior to World War II, Spicer composed radio news programs (including drama pieces in England). He wrote for the Scripps-Howard Syndicate as well as for five newspapers in Ohio. He did PR work for advertising agencies, Chambers of Commerce, and lobbyists. Journalism was a good training ground for his later prolific fiction output (17 novels over a 30+ year career).

With the outbreak of World War II, Spicer enlisted in the U.S. Army as a private and saw two years’ service in the South Pacific (which he wryly dubbed an "all-expense paid cruise to the Pacific"). His stepdaughter, Nancy, believes he worked in the intelligence arena. Three medals, five combat stars, and the usual area awards (a total of ten) later, he quit the Army as a captain. Spicer’s post-war career included three years at Universal Military Training. He also aided nonprofits including a hospital in need of a PR guru. His last nine-to-five job was one year spent at the World Affairs Council.

In the prime of life, Bart Spicer described himself as "six feet two and weigh[t] about 175 pounds in my winter fat." He had dark brown hair and a "slim little dandy" mustache, that with black metal-rim glasses were his signature appearance. In 1944, Bart met Betty Coe in Maryland. She divorced Ted Lucas in November the same year. According to their marriage certificate, Betty and Bart Spicer were wed in New Orleans on February 21, 1946.

Betty Helene Coe was born on November 5, 1913 in Buffalo, New York. Her mother was Helene Ullman (1895-1968). Her father, Charles Francis Coe (1890-1956), was a larger-than-life figure (much as Bart Spicer, a big Hemingway fan, eventually became). Betty, 80, passed away from pneumonia on August 12, 1994 in Payson, Arizona. Her ashes were interred at the Memorial Garden, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church also in Payson.

Betty’s father, C. F. "Socker" Coe, became a regular contributor in the stable of Thomas B. Costain (1885-1965), editor at the Saturday Evening Post (SEP). Besides being a prolific short story writer (SEP, Argosy, EQMM, Liberty among other magazine credits), Coe also wrote suspense novels (The River Pirate, 1928). He once interviewed boxing great Jack Dempsey and produced at least five movie scripts, including The Gay Bride (1934) starring Carole Lombard, adapted from his short story, ‘Reveal.’ Florida Southern College awarded him an honorary law degree in 1952.

Betty followed her father’s example as an author with his avid encouragement. An early success was her story ‘The Gate’ published in Cosmopolitan (1944). She also "published a good deal of fiction in magazines." Unfortunately, the two men in her life (father and husband) had divergent political views. Whereas Socker Coe was conservative, Bart Spicer had firm liberal leanings (Nancy describes him as "as left-wing as anybody got without going to jail"). Sparks flew and a serious family rift developed.

In 1947, the couple settled in Philadelphia where Betty worked as an editor at Ladies Home Journal. Curtis Publishing Company which also put out SEP owned LHJ. Betty’s special features were lively and well-researched (10 indexed ran between 1955 through 1963). Her LHJ 1961 short story titled ‘Mythical Kingdom’ is a winsome, adroit fantasy ("The ladies of The Crescent didn’t quite know what to make of Lucy. If she was real she was fabulous—and if she wasn’t real, what was she?").

Without a doubt, Betty’s literary/editing talent was a boon to Bart Spicer’s development as a mystery author. Nancy, Betty’s daughter, remarks that they "wrote together more than he wrote alone. They admired each other’s talents and strengths and intellects." A second pivotal event also helped to launch Spicer’s career.

His debut book, The Dark Light, in 1949 won Dodd, Mead’s semi-annual one-thousand-dollar Red Badge Mystery Prize. Previous recipients included Marco Page (pseudonym for Harry Kurnitz) in 1938, Christianna Brand in 1942, and Ursula Curtiss in 1948. William P. McGivern’s first book, But Death Runs Faster, also won in 1948. McGivern’s next title Heaven Ran Last was advertised on the flyleaf to Spicer’s Dark Light. It was somewhat unusual for a detective novel featuring a hardboiled PI like Spicer’s to garner the prize.

The Dark Light made a critical splash. Anthony Boucher in The New York Times Book Review (NYTBR) led the raves: "the qualities of warmth and humanity in this first mystery novel are so appealing." He also accurately predicted that "Mr. Spicer is too able and understanding a writer to become just another hard-boiled cliché monger." The New Yorker reviewed it underneath a Rex Stout book, saying, "A first mystery cast in the familiar hardboiled mold but handled with care and discernment." Saturday Review weighed in, "Up to snuff in action, characters, background, and writing—although plot is not entirely opaque."

PI Carney Wilde turns 29 one fine spring in Philadelphia (Bart Spicer’s residency at the time). He’s hired to find an ex-tire salesman and now preacher Matthew Kimball of the Church of Shining Light. Spillane’s PI, Mike Hammer, had staked out the hardboiled territory in 1947 and Spicer couldn’t help but be sucked into it. The overlong cop interrogation at the book’s climax is its most glaring weakness. However, the brusque interplay between Wilde and Lt. Grodnik is especially enjoyable. Wilde’s wry humor shines. If this PI gig flops, Wilde figures he "could always get a job selling brushes or washing cars."

On the strength of its laudatory reviews and the Dodd, Mead prize, The Dark Light scored a nomination for the 1949 Edgar Award for Best First Novel (Spicer’s only Edgar nod). His competition seemed lightweight. The winner, Alan Green’s What a Body!, was a satire about exercise nuts at a Florida resort. Green would write only one detective novel, They Died Laughing (1952). The Innocent was by Evelyn Piper, a pseudonym for Marryam Modell. Hammer Films made her novel The Nanny into a 1965 horror movie. The Shadow and the Blot by N.D. and G.G. Lobell and The End Is Known by Geoffrey Holiday Hall were by authors of little staying power. Walk the Dark Streets by William Krasner (1917-2003) from St. Louis was the only other real contender.

The second PI Carney Wilde title, Blues for the Prince (1950), is easily the gem of the series. Spicer, a jazz aficionado who collected the records of Jimmy Noone and Sidney Brechet, corresponded with jazz pioneer, Eubie Blake, about the novel. The Duke Ellington Collection also archives two scripts titled "Midnight Music" and "Mood Indigo" (both undated) written by Spicer. Spicer dedicated Blues to his stepdaughter, Nancy. Every aspect clicks in the novel, starting with the wintry Philadelphia setting juxtaposed to the hot jazz milieu.

The dustjacket blurb on Blues pretty much says it all, "Carney Wilde stalks a killer—in a world of jazzmen, singers, and outcasts." Harold Morton Prince, a jazz maestro, is discovered murdered. PI Wilde smokes, drinks, fights, and shoots his way to solve the case. A Billie Holliday figure appears in the cast of characters along with sprinkled references to "Satchmo." An African-American homicide detective, Connolly, has a beefy minor role. Frankie Y. Bailey has noted Connolly is one of the first appearances of a black cop in PI literature. (Ed Lacy’s first black PI Toussaint Moore wouldn’t appear until 1957).

Surprisingly, Blues fetched mixed reviews. Hillis Mills for NYTBR found Spicer’s jazz theme "erudite and interesting" but PI Wilde "a fairly tiresome private eye." The New York Herald Tribune saw it as "not much of a puzzle" but its portrayal of race relations as "an excellent job." Chicago Sunday Tribune panned it as a "tiresome narrative." Boston Globe said "exciting job, poignant, and completely believable." The title also made the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstones Mystery Fiction List (1748-1952). Blues was re-released by the U.K.’s No Exit Press in 1989, one of the rare Spicer reprints I’ve run across (Art Scott’s excerpt on the No Exit Press dustjacket reads " . . . . beautifully crafted").

PI Wilde No. 3 came as The Golden Door in 1951. Spicer dedicated it to Peter Cheyney (b. 1896), Britain’s leading hardboiled fiction writer who died that same year. The title is lifted from a lyric in the Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty. Connolly, the black cop, has a meatier role and stolid Lt. Grodnik is along to keep Wilde honest. The main plot involves smugglers and an ugly scheme to fleece an heiress of her fortune. Wilde runs a rugged squad of department store detectives while his ambition to honcho a detective agency ("Carney Wilde, Inc.") continues to build.

Spicer’s prose here reads smooth and seamless, suggestive of Author Lyons’ superior PI writing in the 1970s. One fascinating aside is Wilde’s various descriptions of PI work. Reviews of No. 3 remained positive. Hillis Mills at NYTBR found Golden had "the same unusual mixture of toughness and warmth." San Francisco Chronicle hailed it as "fast and absorbing." The Providence Journal noted it was "a novel plot handled with unusual skill."

Number Four in the PI Wilde oeuvre was titled Black Sheep, Run (also published in 1951). The book’s dedicatee was Morton Fineman, the Spicers’ long-time Philadelphia attorney and friend. (Fineman also published his own short stories in Story Magazine, Playboy, Saturday Evening Post, and Family Circle). This Wilde saga packs a raw edge to its snappy plot. The PI goes on the dodge to help clear Capt. Grodnik who has been suspended for suspected graft. The dustjacket blurb reads: "FOR A SUCKER; one short, gaudy career! That’s the way Carney Wilde figured it would be. Whoever heard of a private eye trying to clear a cop of being crooked?" Connolly, now a cagey black homicide detective, provides Wilde with an able assist, too.

Most critics voted thumbs up for Black Sheep, Run. Boucher liked the "complex relationship" unfolding between Wilde and Capt. Grodnik. James Sandoe found Carney’s "in good form" but objected to the gagging scenes (I didn’t see them as intrusive). Saturday Review said "nice job."

Spicer’s fifth novel, in 1952, The Long Green (slang for money) marked a crucial shift in his work. PI Wilde flies out from Philadelphia to Tucson, Arizona to investigate the abduction of his vacationing client’s four-year-old daughter. Arizona would become the setting for a number of future Spicer projects. Though mediocre fare in the series, Long has its moments of fish-out-water humor ("All this cactus makes me nervous") and offers vivid landscape descriptions. Less engrossing are the scenes with our hero bathing and the extended car chase through the dark mountains. Spicer dedicated this novel to his mother, Ethel Liddy Spicer.

Reviewers generally praised Long. Boucher called it "the most sheerly exciting book in the Spicer canon to date." The persnickety James Sandoe even declared it "an artful and a hair-raising job of work." Kathleen Sproul at the Saturday Review puzzled how Wilde could sleuth for so long without sleep (Dexedrine, even in 1952).

The sixth book was The Taming of Carney Wilde (1954). This is a breezy book, more fun (think Richard S. Prather) than hardboiled. It qualifies for the odd duck in the series. PI Wilde heads down the Mississippi River to New Orleans aboard a paddleboat (Dixie Dandy). Along the way, he investigates murder and indulges in romance. The auxiliary characters are first-rate oddballs, the humor droll. Boucher in NYTBR described it as "a straight love story" and fretted about "the ‘taming’ of one of America’s few top-notch operatives." San Francisco Chronicle graded it as a "B+" and "in Spicer’s lighter vein." Saturday Review, cryptic as ever, remarked on "nice scenery, pleasant people; love interest slight impediment. Holds up nicely."

The seventh and last PI Wilde title was aptly titled, Exit, Running (1959). Married and living off the fat of his profitable detective agency, Wilde enters the fray again. When his new wife Ellen’s friend’s husband is found murdered, he investigates. Wilde gets in his licks knocking around bad guys, perhaps to shed his "taming" image. Ellen scolds him in the novel’s (and series’) last line: "I should never let you outside the door without your gun." Wilde’s usual right-hand man, Penn Maxwell, is shuttled off on an overdue vacation. Nimmo, an ex-cop and new sidekick, is the most fascinating ancillary character. The hoary Capt. Grodnik also lends support.

Book pundits gave PI Wilde an exuberant sendoff. James Sandoe at the Herald said, "it’s good to have Carney back." Boucher felt more effusive: "The case is less stimulating than some of Carney’s past adventures, and the telling leaves a loose end or two, but it’s good to welcome back one of the most believable, intelligent, and responsible operatives in the business." San Francisco Chronicle gave it high marks as "no slow moments, fine skill in narration, and expression." Saturday Review echoed similar praise, "Nicely handled, with sound casting, heady pace. Tops."

Bart Spicer made his bones on the strength of the seven detective novels alone. Leading commentators agree they’re a superb, sadly neglected series. Tom Nolan groups Spicer in the "good writers" who were "working the private eye street," a roster that boasted Ross Macdonald, Thomas Dewey, and Wade Miller. William DeAndrea comments the books are "excellent, if unjustly forgotten." Professor David Geherin tags Spicer as "underrated" and credits him with "elevat[ing] mystery writing to the level of serious fiction."

Art Scott, an avid Spicer champion and biographer, justifiably writes, "Spicer’s plotting is coherent with credible twists and surprises; his style strikes a satisfying balance between the telegraphic and the over-ripe; he writes convincing dialogue and makes imaginative use of the ‘hard-boiled simile’." Picking the best from the crop is a tough call. Gary Warren Niebuhr, however, cites Blues for the Prince, Black Sheep Run and The Long Green. Baker and Nietzel in 101 Knights rate The Long Green, The Taming of Carney Wilde, and Blues for the Prince as "excellent." A contemporary critic of Spicer’s, James Sandoe, found The Dark Light, Blues for the Prince, The Golden Door, and The Long Green "are all worth attention, but the first and the latest are perhaps most effective."

Marv Lachman’s insights point out Bart Spicer’s synthesis of local color, minorities, and racial themes. "Long before regional detail was a part of virtually every American mystery novel, Bart Spicer would include it and it invariably enhanced his mystery plots. In Blues for the Prince, he captures the politics of the racial divide in Philadelphia. In it, with charges flying of police brutality, police Captain Grodnik is relieved when it turns out that a cop using violence against blacks is black himself. Native-Americans play an important role in The Long Green, and again Spicer shows a minority group with some depth to his description. He has a sub-plot involving a project planned by a New York State Mohawk to grow cotton on the Apache reservation of Arizona. The Mohawk criticizes the Apache work ethic, claiming it will take generations for them to become reliable workers.

Modern crime fiction writers uniformly admire Spicer. Ed Gorman asserts, "Bart Spicer was an original and a natural. Nobody did it quite his way, and his way was magnificent." Bill Crider wrote nearly twenty years ago in 1001 Midnights, "Spicer’s prose is tough but literate, and his plot [for The Dark Light] is complicated but tight. His narrator, [Carney] Wilde strikes just the right notes of toughness and compassion throughout. Everything adds up to a first-rate job of writing and storytelling, making the current neglect of Spicer’s work as big a mystery as anything in his books." Mr. Crider says he still stands by those words today. Finally, Ed Hoch "read and enjoyed all the Carney Wilde books."

Betty and Bart Spicer resided in Philadelphia on and off, starting from 1947-1951. Spicer also joined MWA in 1951 and took on Maxwell Aley Associates as his literary agent. The Spicers moved to Arizona, then returned to Philadelphia in 1954. A capsule author profile in Library Journal from 1953 reported on Spicer holed up down in Mexico writing full-time. It also stated Spicer had "spent almost equal amounts of time in the four major regions of this country."

The nomadic Spicer also traveled to India, Africa, and France. Later in the same decade, the Spicers moved to New York City where Bart became a member of the Players Club (jazz). In the mid-1960s, they flew to Spain and resided in Torremolinos and Malaga, then quiet, gorgeous villages on the Mediterranean coast. Taken by the climate, they stayed in several artist colonies. In 1977, the Spicers traveled back to Tucson to seek medical treatment where Bart, direly ill with throat cancer, died early the following year.

Betty Spicer had strong family ties to Arizona. She and her younger asthmatic brother Alan Coe (1918-82) grew up on a big ranch near Prescott, Arizona. According to her daughter, Nancy, "She [Betty] loved living in Arizona and writing about it." No doubt Betty’s fondness for the locale enthused Bart to adopt it as a setting in the PI books as well as his larger fiction. In fact, Betty may’ve had a larger hand in editing Spicer’s fiction than his biographies attribute. Most notably, they collaborated under the joint husband-wife pseudonym Jay Barbette (the surname a combination of the letters in their first names, Bart and Betty).

The four Jay Barbette novels roughly chronicle the adventures of Henry Butten. The prose in these books (as also exemplified in the PI novels) displays a polished, stylish, and deft quality lacking a bit in Bart Spicer’s later big books. After 1960, Betty no longer collaborated as closely with Bart.

The first Jay Barbette novel, Final Copy (1951), was also perhaps the most successful. The protagonist is Harry Butten, 30, an ex-athlete now a newspaper editor in the small city of New Devon (Philadelphia?). Beat up and left in a wheelchair after witnessing a murder, Butten hunts for his assailant. Spicer used his newspaper background to layer in rich, quirky details about the trade. The lean, tight, fast, but largely episodic plot makes it a serviceable whodunit. The robust supporting cast includes "Mr. God," Butten’s fanatical boss and Butten’s girlfriend Alice, a gifted cartoonist.

To launch this series right, Dodd, Mead hired Stefan Salter, a well-known book designer of the period, to produce the dustjacket design. The Spicers also adapted the book as a TV script for Ford Theater broadcasted on January 26, 1951. The drama was directed by Franklin Schaffner and starred Robert Sterling, Anna Minot, and future Hollywood Squares personality, Wally Cox.

The second Jay Barbette vehicle was Dear Dead Days in 1953. Mike Chancey, a staff photographer on Harry Butten’s newspaper, narrates this one. Butten and Chancey team up to solve the murder of Petra Gale, a reclusive, wealthy, and renowned stage actress. The love interest is Dobie Baird who edits Mundy, a fashion magazine (Ladies Home Journal?). As a bouncy, well-written, and quite readable "cozy," it holds up well in the series.

Number Three for Jay Barbette was titled The Deadly Doll (1958), Betty Spicer’s favorite. This tale returns to New Devon where Harry Butten is now managing editor. Julie Anderson, 26, is the investigative reporter who works under the watchful gaze of her boss. With her husband killed in a car wreck and her son chronically ill, Julie is forced to take a dull assignment. She checks into a seventeen-year-old murder allegedly perpetrated by Dolly Graff, incarcerated all this time in a local mental hospital. The love interest is between Julie and a local cop named John Goodnight.

Based on a true Arizona murder case, The Deadly Doll attracted first-rate reviews. Boucher wrote, "it’s overlong but ever readable story . . . with an ending that leaves you in retrospective bafflement." "Lively entertainment, romance and all," James Sandoe wrote. San Francisco Chronicle summed it up best: "A nice balance of pity and suspicion and some extremely pleasant characterization make this a nice straight thriller, well plotted and poised between the soft and the tough schools."

Look Behind You (1960) was the last Barbette project. John Brainherd, 28 and a rich investment banker, this time narrates the tale. A lady’s letter from Mexico warns him his life is in peril. Brainherd turns to Harry Butten for aid. The mystery plays out nicely in the exciting plot. By now, critics thought the series had waned. James Sandoe seemed overly harsh in calling this title "girlishly executed" and "dullish Barbette." More charitable, Boucher ruled that "the book’s competent and readable." San Francisco Chronicle noted "plenty of suspense" and "Barbette’s usual good construction and writing." Jacques Barzun noted the "good writing" but "not likely to be kept for rereading."

Spicer’s first spy fiction was The Day of the Dead (1955) which drew on his Mexico days for its setting. Colonel Peregrine White, a war hero who walks with a cane, teams up with Castle, a crusty FBI agent, to thwart a suspected Communist takeover of the Mexican government. The somewhat dated plot includes a standard love interest and suggests shadowy ties to the Trotsky assassination. As a Cold War book, this narrative is crisp, sardonic, and thoughtful. Again, stepdaughter Nancy recalls that Bart Spicer made friends with CIA operatives in New York and Spain who may have supplied some his colorful background material.

Arthur Sussman (who did covers for Agatha Christie, George Bagby, and science fiction paperbacks) is credited for Dead’s striking cover design. Boucher said "it’s a good espionage" but "less good than the author can be." James Sandoe wrote "oddly if rather agreeably muddled and distinctly exciting." However, Art Scott characterized the book as "a fast-paced spy novel" and Professor Robin W. Winks incorporated it on his "Personal List of Favorites." With this book, Spicer began his transition from the PI projects.

One new area the versatile writer successfully explored was historical fiction. His four titles in this different genre include The Wild Ohio (1953), The Tall Captains (1957), Brother to the Enemy (1959), and The Day Before Thunder (1960). All four took place around the same timeframe, the American Revolutionary War (1770-1790). Spicer (who had a keen interest in U.S. history) has been given high marks for keeping his details and background credible and accurate.

Brother to the Enemy about Benedict Arnold was dedicated to William Park Hotchkiss, a history professor at Syracuse University who evidently provided research support. The NYTBR found it "gripping" but thought the middle contained "spy-type antics that suggest an old Peter Lorre movie." The Wild Ohio, about French émigrés escaping the bloody guillotine to settle in Ohio, netted favorable notices. The NYTBR, for instance, noted "admirers of Mr. Spicer’s detective-adventures will not be disappointed." Spicer dedicated the book to Raymond T. Bond ("partner in crime"), an editor at Dodd, Mead. Bond edited Handbook For Poisoners, a collection of poisoning tales, which was an Edgar-nominee in 1952.

The early 1960s saw a corporate restructuring at Betty and Bart Spicer’s longtime publisher, Dodd, Mead. As so inevitably happens with new editors at the helm, Dodd, Mead dropped the Spicers from their list. This roughly corresponded with the Spicers relocating to Spain and hiring a new agency, Curtis Brown Ltd.

To remain a marketable author, Bart Spicer shifted his focus to yet another genre, the blockbuster fictions. Before his death in 1978, he produced five such titles. His first, Act of Anger, attracted the most interest from Atheneum who brought it out in 1962. Act of Anger has to represent Spicer’s tour de force marking the apex of his commercial and critical acclaim (an ad for Arthur Hailey’s Airport is in found in the paperback). The paperback went through at least four mass printings. The book is very much a product of its time.

The main plot revolves around a young Mexican youth who is allegedly attacked by a wealthy, older LA homosexual male. The youth fatally knifes him in self-defense. Burr and Benson Kellogg are the two brother defense lawyers who fight for the boy’s life in a sensational murder trial. All homosexuals in the book are depicted as deviant, predatory, and abhorrent.

Acceptance of gays, lamentably, came much later. Spicer’s contemporary liberal-minded crime authors such as Ed Lacy also couldn’t completely overcome their homophobia. Gay PI writer Joseph Hansen commented, "Queers were also still good as twisted murderers and cringing suspects." He cited Act of Anger as one of "numerous" examples. More recently, Jon Breen has noted the novel’s "rampant homophobia."

That aside, Act of Anger is a first-rate courtroom drama, the equal of today’s latest Scott Turow or John Grisham. Presumably lawyer friend Morton Fineman advised Spicer on the novel’s legal content. NYTBR praised its "ambling tempo" and "exciting denouement." San Francisco Chronicle ranked it as a "in every sense above-average adult entertainment." The Chicago Sunday Tribune called it "strong meat" and a "compelling courtroom fiction." Art Scott took note of it as "powerfully written, rich in detail and characterization." However, The Los Angeles Times summed up all of Spicer’s big books by saying, "Something for everyone. Graceful prose for the literary reader, shock value for the sensation seeker, realism for the literal-minded, and suspense for the mystery fan."

Spicer’s exile in Spain inspired The Burned Man (1966). Set during Franco’s autocratic regime, Colonel Peregrine White makes his return from 1955’s novel, Day of the Dead (though this time oddly spry and not encumbered with a limp and cane). An accomplished, tight book, its plot is understated with Franco’s anti-American feelings seething in the background. A nebulous Communist terrorist cell cooks "the burned man" in a radioactive barbecue (from the makings of an atomic bomb). Art Scott viewed this spy fiction as "a vigorous, complex espionage novel, unmarred by post-Bondian cliché." Professor Larry Landrum found it "an excellent spy novel." Library Journal called it a "timely, rugged adventure." Saturday Review ("excellent" and "fast action") and San Francisco Chronicle ("crisp") highlighted similar strengths.

Biographies also credit Bart Spicer with writing short stories. One appeared during this period with a Donald Honig story in the January 1967 issue of Argosy. With so few of his stories indexed, presumably Spicer’s almost exclusive attention fixed on long fiction.

Kellogg Junction (1969) and Festival (1970) came out in successive years. Kellogg Junction was a continuation of the Benson Kellogg saga. Benson finds himself caught in a swirl involving his spirited wife and a Mob boss while gambling is made legal in Arizona. This well-paced, big book enthralled critics. NYTBR wrote, "Mr. Spicer has created a stunning tale, told with imagination and abundant insight." Chicago Daily News raved "mark this one top-graded in all respects." Library Journal saw the book as "a skillful mingling of a saga of the old West with a modern criminal syndicate." Interestingly, Bart Spicer made the book’s dedication, "To Betty, as always."

Festival didn’t snag as much attention, popular or critical. It was Spicer’s satire of the jet set, perhaps inspired by his artist colony days. The setting is at the Cannes Film Festival where publicist Ethan Allen Chapin parties and frets over his ex, his mistress, and his rebellious hippie son. Spicer included gay characters with less hostility. Tongue-in-cheek, he also made his historical novels into films. Library Journal called the book an "enjoyable, fast-moving story."

Bart Spicer’s final published book, The Adversary (1974), was another sweeping courtroom drama, perhaps an attempt to recapture the luster of Act of Anger. From a critical standpoint, it succeeds. The yarn concerns the murder trial of a young, lone drifter named Jon Pike defended by Gordie Guthrie in the Arizona border town of Rincon. Both complex

characters are memorable ones. The flamboyant Guthrie smokes thin cowboy cigarettes. Pike becomes a jailhouse lawyer, bestselling historical fiction author, and all-time skel. Eventually his guilty verdict is appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. Spicer took some cynical shots at America’s capital punishment and penal code.

Critics also liked The Adversary. Library Journal thought the "characterization is excellent, especially of the loud mouth attorney with lots of smarts." Publishers Weekly thought of it as a "gripping drama." Jon Breen observed, "Courtroom action is generally excellent, and the portraits of the two complex central characters—the rising super defender and the death-row autodidact—are outstanding. Commentators on Spicer’s ‘50s private eye fiction suggest a neglected master, a view this very good novel does nothing to contradict."

Again, Hollywood came courting. In November 1977, NBC ran a six-hour miniseries called Aspen adapted from Spicer’s novel spliced with Bert Hirschfield’s same-titled book. The cast included scene-stealer Sam Eliot, Perry King, and Michelle Phillips. This miniseries aired about the same time Bart Spicer was diagnosed with throat cancer in Spain.

Subsequent to Bart Spicer’s premature death in February 1978, Betty continued to write. One novel manuscript attracted interest at Curtis Publishing but for some reason the deal fell through. She suffered from emphysema and never quite emotionally recovered from her husband’s death. A tireless promoter, she continued to work through their literary agency to bring out various Spicer/Barbette reprints until her death in 1994.

Bart Spicer proved himself a top-notch writer of PI writer during the golden age of detective fiction. With his wife Betty, he collaborated to produce a durable mystery series. He later branched out to try his hand in historical and spy fiction with notable success. His later courtroom dramas—if dismissed only as commercial potboilers—are terribly underrated. The strong writing and characterization alone lift them to a level approximating serious fiction. His body of works displays a consistency in quality, originality, and durability.

Which Bart Spicers books warrant consideration for reissue? Certainly all or any of the PI Carney Wildes still appeal to hardboiled and detective fiction fans. The Burned Man, a solid Cold War spy caper, easily outclasses any James Bond saga. The Adversary outmatches any hot legal thriller published today. The Deadly Doll of the Jay Barbette series is the most interesting worthy of attention.

Copyright© 2006 Ed Lynskey

Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank Nancy Althoff, Margery Flax, Ed Gorman, Ed Hoch, Marv Lachman, and Gary Warren Niebuhr for sharing their insights and assistance in the writing of this profile on Bart Spicer.

PI Carney Wilde Titles

The Dark Light (Dodd, 1949)
Blues for the Prince (Dodd, 1950)
Black Sheep, Run (Dodd, 1951)
The Golden Door (Dodd, 1951)
The Taming of Carney Wilde (Dodd, 1954)
Exit, Running (1959)

Jay Barbette Titles

Final Copy (Dodd, 1950)
Dear Dead Days (Dodd, 1953); also published as Death’s Long Shadow (Bantam, 1955)
The Deadly Doll (Dodd, 1958)
Look Behind You (Dodd, 1960)

Spy/ Espionage Novels

The Day of the Dead (Dodd, 1956)
The Burned Man (Atheneum, 1966)

Historical Fiction Titles

The Wild Ohio (Dodd, 1954)
The Tall Captains (Dodd, 1957)
Brother to the Enemy (Dodd, 1958)
The Day before Thunder (Dodd, 1960)

Act of Anger (Atheneum, 1962)
Kellogg Junction (Atheneum, 1969)
Festival (Atheneum, 1970)
The Adversary (Putnam, 1974)

Bibliography

Arizona Republic. "Obituary for Betty Spicer." September 2, 1994. CL 18.

Baker, Robert A. and Michael T. Nietzel, editors. Private Eyes: One Hundred and One Knights—A Survey of American Detective Fiction 1922-1984. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Press, 1985.

Barzun, Jacques and Wendell Hertiz Taylor, editors. A Catalogue of Crime. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.

Book Review Digest. Bronx, NY: H. W. Wilson Company. Various volumes.

Breen, Jon. Novel Verdicts: A Guide to Courtroom Fiction. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2000.

Burt, Daniel S., editor. "Bart Spicer." What Historical Novel Do I Read Next?. New York: Gale Research, 1997.

Contemporary Authors. "Bart Spicer." Volume 103. Detroit: Gale Research, 1982.

Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series. "Bart Spicer." Volume 61. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998.

Contento, William G. The FictionMags Index. (http://users.ev1.net/~homeville/fiction-mag/0start.htm)

Correspondence re Bart Spicer; Blues for the Prince. Box 1, 21 February 1950. Eubie Blake Papers, ca. 1905-1983. Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, MD.

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