Nostalgic Mystery Radio

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar For over twelve years, from 1949 through 1962 (including a one year hiatus in 1954-1955), this series recounted the cases "the man with the action-packed expense account, America’s fabulous freelance insurance investigator, Johnny Dollar". Johnny was an accomplished 'padder' of his expense account. The name of the show derives from the fact that he cl...

Barrie Craig Confidential Investigator William Gargan, who also played the better known television (and radio) detective Martin Kane, was the voice of New York eye Barrie Craig while Ralph Bell portrayed his associate, Lt. Travis Rogers. Craig's office was on Madison Avenue and his adventures were fairly standard PI fare. He worked alone, solved cases efficiently, and feared no man. As the pr...

Agatha Christie's Death In The Clouds From seat No.9, Hercule Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. Over to his right sat a pretty young woman, clearly infatuated with the man opposite; ahead, in seat No.13, sat a Countess with a poorly-concealed cocaine habit; across the gangway in seat No.8, a detective writer was being troubled by an aggressive wasp. What Poirot d...

Nick Carter, Master Detective, which aired on Mutual from 1943 to 1955. Nick Carter first came to radio as The Return of Nick Carter. Then Nick Carter, Master Detective, with Lon Clark in the title role, began April 11, 1943, on Mutual, continuing in many different timeslots for well over a decade. Jock MacGregor was the producer-director of scripts by Alfred Bester, Milton J. Kramer, David Kogan...

Richard Diamond, Private Detective came to NBC in 1949. Diamond was a slick, sophisticated detective, with a sharp tongue for folks who needed it. Diamond enjoyed the detective life, but not as much as entertaining his girl, Helen Asher. After each show, he would croon a number to his Park Avenue sweetheart. Mr. Powell, a former song and dance man, was perfect for the role. He added an extra dimen...

Get this and get it straight. Crime is a sucker's road and those who travel it wind up in the gutter, the prison or the grave. Philip Marlowe was Los Angeles's toughest detective in the groundbreaking series by Raymond Chandler that helped establish the "hard-boiled" detective subgenre. The Lonesome Reunion : Marlowe finds himself in Lonesome Arizona, on the trail of the loot f...

Dragnet ran from June 3rd,1949 to February 26th,1957 on NBC at various times and days and starred Jack Webb as Detective Sergeant Joe Friday. Various partners throughout the show's run were Sergeant Ben Romero (Barton Yarborough), Ed Jacobs (Barney Phillips), and Officer Frank Smith (Ben Alexander). Webb was the creator/Director of the series and wanted everything to be as authentic as possib...

THE SITTAFORD MYSTERY In a remote house in the middle of Dartmoor, six shadowy figures huddle around a small table for a seance. Tension rises as the spirits spell out a chilling message: ‘Captain Trevelyan… dead… murder.’ Is this black magic or simply a macabre joke? The only way to be certain is to locate Captain Trevelyan. Unfortunately, his home is six miles away and, with snow drifts blocking...

Pat Novak For Hire : Classic old time radio showing starring Jack Webb (1946, 1949) and Ben Morris (1947-48) as Pat Novak, a street wise guy who rents boats and anything else a good man pays a bad one to do. Novak is always getting into scrapes when taking on jobs for hire or occasionally as a favor to a friend. When he does, he goes to see "The Only Honest Guy I Know" an ex-Doctor and a...

The Mysterious Traveler ran on Mutual from December 1943 until about September of 1952. This tremendously popular radio show was truly an all around favorite for any mystery lover of the time. It was the brainchild and magnum opus of golden age writing greats Robert Arthur and David Kogan. New Year's Nightmare :  A man goes on a year-end bender and wakes up a year later married to a strange w...

The Adventures of Sam Spade was a suspense/detective radio show starring Howard Duff in the colorful title role along with Lurene Tuttle as his secretary Effie.  It was based on the private detective character created by Dashiell Hammett, well-known from the book and movie The Maltese Falcon.  The show ran from 1946 to 1951.  Duff was replaced by Steve Dunne in later episodes. The Rowdy Dowser Cap...

Tales of the Texas Rangers , a western adventure old-time radio drama, premiered on July 8, 1950, on the US NBC radio network and remained on the air through September 14, 1952. Movie star Joel McCrea starred as Texas Ranger Jayce Pearson, who used the latest scientific techniques to identify the criminals and his faithful horse, Charcoal (or "Charky," as Jayce would sometimes refer to h...

Nick Carter, Master Detective, which aired on Mutual from 1943 to 1955. Nick Carter first came to radio as The Return of Nick Carter. Then Nick Carter, Master Detective, with Lon Clark in the title role, began April 11, 1943, on Mutual, continuing in many different timeslots for well over a decade. Jock MacGregor was the producer-director of scripts by Alfred Bester, Milton J. Kramer, David Kogan...

Richard Diamond, Private Detective came to NBC in 1949. Diamond was a slick, sophisticated detective, with a sharp tongue for folks who needed it. Diamond enjoyed the detective life, but not as much as entertaining his girl, Helen Asher. After each show, he would croon a number to his Park Avenue sweetheart. Mr. Powell, a former song and dance man, was perfect for the role. He added an extra dimen...

Sherlock Holmes , fictional character created by the Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle. The prototype for the modern mastermind detective, Holmes first appeared in Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet , published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual of 1887. As the world’s first and only “consulting detective,” he pursued criminals throughout Victorian and Edwardian London, the south of England, and continen...

Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot: the world-renowned, moustachioed Belgian private detective, unsurpassed in his intelligence and understanding of the criminal mind, respected and admired by police forces and heads of state across the globe. Since his inception over 100 years ago, Poirot has stolen the hearts and minds of audiences from Azerbaijan to Vietnam, and his celebrated cases have bee...

Nero Wolfe is a fictional character, a brilliant, oversized, eccentric armchair detective created in 1934 by American mystery writer Rex Stout. Wolfe was born in Montenegro and keeps his past murky. He lives in a luxurious brownstone on West 35th Street in New York City, and he is loath to leave his home for business or anything that would keep him from reading his books, tending his orchids, or e...

Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot : the world-renowned, moustachioed Belgian private detective, unsurpassed in his intelligence and understanding of the criminal mind, respected and admired by police forces and heads of state across the globe. Since his inception over 100 years ago, Poirot has stolen the hearts and minds of audiences from Azerbaijan to Vietnam, and his celebrated cases have be...

Get this and get it straight. Crime is a sucker's road and those who travel it wind up in the gutter, the prison or the grave. Philip Marlowe was Los Angeles's toughest detective in the groundbreaking series by Raymond Chandler that helped establish the "hard-boiled" detective subgenre. Birds On The Wing : When a wealthy playboy falls in with some aerialists and gets a threaten...

Nero Wolfe is a fictional character, a brilliant, oversized, eccentric armchair detective created in 1934 by American mystery writer Rex Stout. Wolfe was born in Montenegro and keeps his past murky. He lives in a luxurious brownstone on West 35th Street in New York City, and he is loath to leave his home for business or anything that would keep him from reading his books, tending his orchids, or e...

Dragnet ran from June 3rd,1949 to February 26th,1957 on NBC at various times and days and starred Jack Webb as Detective Sergeant Joe Friday. Various partners throughout the show's run were Sergeant Ben Romero (Barton Yarborough), Ed Jacobs (Barney Phillips), and Officer Frank Smith (Ben Alexander). Webb was the creator/Director of the series and wanted everything to be as authentic as possib...

Sherlock Holmes , fictional character created by the Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle. The prototype for the modern mastermind detective, Holmes first appeared in Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet , published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual of 1887. As the world’s first and only “consulting detective,” he pursued criminals throughout Victorian and Edwardian London, the south of England, and continen...

Tales of the Texas Rangers , a western adventure old-time radio drama, premiered on July 8, 1950, on the US NBC radio network and remained on the air through September 14, 1952. Movie star Joel McCrea starred as Texas Ranger Jayce Pearson, who used the latest scientific techniques to identify the criminals and his faithful horse, Charcoal (or "Charky," as Jayce would sometimes refer to h...

Pat Novak For Hire : Classic old time radio showing starring Jack Webb (1946, 1949) and Ben Morris (1947-48) as Pat Novak, a street wise guy who rents boats and anything else a good man pays a bad one to do. Novak is always getting into scrapes when taking on jobs for hire or occasionally as a favor to a friend. When he does, he goes to see "The Only Honest Guy I Know" an ex-Doctor and a...

Richard Diamond, Private Detective came to NBC in 1949. Diamond was a slick, sophisticated detective, with a sharp tongue for folks who needed it. Diamond enjoyed the detective life, but not as much as entertaining his girl, Helen Asher. After each show, he would croon a number to his Park Avenue sweetheart. Mr. Powell, a former song and dance man, was perfect for the role. He added an extra dimen...