Ed,
Excellent article on Spicer. I was particularly pleased by
your comprehensive coverage of his post-Wilde work.
One thing about Carney Wilde that has always struck me is how
Spicer turns the "Marlowe Paradigm" on its head.
Wilde starts out as a firm follower of the paradigm
(one-man agency, 1st person narrator, ex-cop, etc) in all
respects save age (and, at 29, he misses that by a single
scant year).
Yet over the course of the series, Wilde builds his tiny
agency from a one-man hole-in-the-wall office to one of the
largest investigative/security agencies in Pennsylvania (I
wonder if it's since been absorbed by Securitas, like
Pinkerton, Burns, Wells/Fargo. etc), completing undercutting
the lone wolfe aspect of the PI mythos.
The other thing is that, despite all the murders he solves,
Wilde is seen doing things that real PI's might reasonably
do. Security at a department store, responding to a bank
robbery alarm that his company has installed, etc.
The building of a PI agency from a one-man show to a huge,
successful business won't be seen again until Max Allan
Collins's historical Nate Heller series, and the more
realistic look at PI work (with the possible exception of
Stanely Ellin's THE EIGHT CIRCLE) won't be seen again until
Joe Gores's DKA series.
JIM DOHERTY
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