Bernhardt's Edge by Collin Wilcox

First published in 1988; published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road on October 1, 2013

Good noir begins with good characters, troubled people struggling with dark secrets or a shady past. Betty Giles was an art curator for a large corporation before she went to work for a private collector and discovered that her boss, one of the wealthiest men in the world, indulges a sinister passion. Betty's boyfriend tries to take advantage of that knowledge and before long, Betty and her boyfriend are on the run.

Enter Alan Bernhardt, an actor/director working with a small theater company in San Francisco who moonlights as a private investigator. For years he's been working for an unscrupulous investigator named Dancer. That changes after he takes on the assignment of tracking down Betty Giles. Knowing that he may be placing his life at risk, Bernhardt puts himself in the middle of Betty's drama.

Bernhardt isn't a standard noir detective, as you might guess from his theatrical career. Described as gentle and self-effacing, he's no Sam Spade. He owns guns but doesn't like them. While Bernhardt isn't a stereotyped detective, the hit man who chases Betty and her boyfriend is too stereotypical to be interesting. Still, the hit man's meticulous planning redeems him as a worthy noir character. Betty is sympathetic and believable.

Except for a couple of scenes in which Bernhardt becomes needlessly philosophical (which wouldn't be so bad if his philosophical observations were less shallow), the story moves swiftly. Tension mounts effectively as the novel proceeds to a resolution that is a little too neat, but satisfying nonetheless.

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