Monthly Archives: November 2005

Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 25 – Defense Attorney

This week’s podcast will present a character from radio whose primary job was not an investigator, but rather an attorney who helped put criminals away. But radio audiences were already listening to Perry Mason. Yet even in that series, the element of investigation was paramount. This week I will present a woman, Martha Ellis Bryant, who was by vocation an… (more…)

Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 24 – True Detective Mysteries

Besides all the fictional private eye radio serials over the years, there were also dramatic series devoted to the real thing. Series such as Gang Busters and Dragnet focused on the lives of the cop. In 1929, there was a radio series that began over CBS that was based on one of the bigger pulp magazines of the day –… (more…)

Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 23 – Philo Vance

Broke and without work, former art critic and journalist S.S. Van Dine burst onto the fictional detective scene with the publication “The Benson Murder Case” which featured wealthy connoisseur and man about town Philo Vance who was called in to solve the crime. The book, part one of a trilogy, was an instant hit. Not to be left out radio… (more…)

Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 22 – The Abbotts

In 1941, authoress Frances Crane wrote a mystery called “The Turquoise Shop.” In the course of the novel, private investigator, Patrick Abbott, enters the shop of Jean Holly. By the end of the novel the two had fallen in love. In future books involving the couple, they married and continued to solve crimes encountered as part of the plot. In… (more…)