Category Archives: Podcasts

Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 278 – Richard Diamond, Private Investigator (Christmas show repeat)

It’s Christmas time and this week’s podcast is a special one! Eleven years ago, I featured this on the Radio Detective Story Hour. Staying in the vein of our detective theme, I present a variation on Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol” with the puckish Dick Powell in his Richard Diamond hat. Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

What happened to the Radio Detective Story Hour

This post is late coming. I wanted to update those who have asked why there have not been any new postings to this blog/audio of the Radio Detective Story Hour. The fact is that I have been working for some time on another love of mine – Science Fiction. I co-wrote in 1996 a book on Science Fiction on Radio… (more…)

Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 277 – Escape: Finger of Doom

Writer and critic Anthony Boucher was assembling short stories from current mystery writers in 1945 for a collection he was calling Great American Detective Stories and wanted to include one from mystery and noir writer Cornell Woolrich. Boucher chose for his collection, the Woolrich story called “Finger of Doom” which first appeared in Argosy magazine in 1940; one of only… (more…)

Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 276 – Philip Marlowe – Trouble Is My Business

Raymond Chandler’s early writing career was mainly as a poet and essayist for several publications while living in the United Kingdom. But Chandler was not happy with it and returned to the U.S. to become an accountant. After being wounded in the trenches of France, he returned to the U.S. hoping to take up writing. Instead he hired on with… (more…)

Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 275 – Escape – Crossing Paris

Every so often while listening to various crime radio episodes, I come across one that just really holds my attention and surprises me with a fuller, denser episode that makes listening to it a real pleasure. Such was the case when I listened to an episode of Escape called “Crossing Paris” from 1950. It is a strongly character driven story… (more…)

Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 274 – Escape: I Saw Myself Running

Antony Ellis, a remarkable writer as well as producer his work is found all over Suspense and Escape especially. Being an ex-pat Englishman, he also produced and wrote the John Dehner vehicle Frontier Gentleman, which chronicled the adventures of one J.B. Kendall, writer for the London Times, as he moved around the old west. Ellis seemed often taken imaginatively into… (more…)

Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 273 – Dead Man Control

One of the best radio mystery series in the 1940s was the Crime Club which based its plays upon stories written by actual crime writers of the times. These were writers whose works were part of the Doubleday Crime Club imprints in the forties and were usually cracker crime stories. The Mutual Broadcasting System snapped up a radio package offered… (more…)

Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 272 – The Thimble

Eleazar Lipsky was a lawyer and prosecutor in the Bronx and Manhattan until his death in 1993. In the 1940s he turned to writing novels and plays while maintaining his legal work. It was natural that most of his stories revolved around the courtroom and investigative attorneys. Probably his most famous novel was originally based upon a 100 page manuscript… (more…)

Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 271 – Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper

This podcast offering is only tangentially a detective story of sorts. It does involve investigations by individuals, potential suspects, potential crimes, and a resolution of sorts. And like many of my features, it comes based upon a short story. The story is from the sometimes strange mind of writer Robert Bloch. Bloch is probably best known among the public at… (more…)

Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 270 – The Man in the Velvet Hat

In the introduction to Jerome and Harold Prince’s first detective short story, editors Ellery Queen called the piece a “strange, strange story.” The story was called “The Man in the Velvet Hat” and it became the best known of the writing duo who continued to publish occasionally in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. In the introduction, the authors wrote to the… (more…)

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