Month: December 2014

EP1457: Philip Marlowe: The Dude from Manhattan

Gerald Mohr
Philip Marlowe goes to a friend’s dude ranch and finds himself drawn into a domestic dispute with a guest, a wife, and one of the ranch’s cowboys that quickly turns to murder.

Original Air Date: July 2, 1949

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EP1456: Crime and Peter Chambers: The Contessa la Fresso Murder

Dane ClarkWhen a  young cabby who is an ex-con is charged with the murder of a Contessa, Pete tries to prove his innocence.

Original Air Date: June 15, 1954

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EP1455: The Saint: The Case of the Previewed Crime

Vincent Price

A man claiming to be an author wakes Simon to ask if a crime is insolvable. The next day he finds out the murder appears to have happened.

Original Air Date: July 30, 1950

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EP1454s: Molle Mystery Theatre: Murder in the City Hall

Sam Delaguerra investigates the murder of a judge tied up in a cycle of corruption.

Original Air Date: April 5, 1946

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The Top 10 Nero Wolfe Novellas, Part One

This week, we begin a look at the very best of Rex Stout’s 39 Nero Wolfe novellas.  Note, the 33 Novels will be covered at a later date. We’re only counting down the most memorable short stories featuring one of fiction’s greatest detectives.

10) Murder is No Joke (1958): A woman comes to Wolfe’s office concerned that her brother’s business is being destroyed by a woman who has some hold over her. She wants Wolfe to investigate her but doesn’t have the money to pay him. However, she offers to pay Wolfe to call the woman. Wolfe dials the number and is promptly insulted by the woman and then hears sounds that indicates violence has occurred. Archie calls the woman’s office and finds she has indeed been murdered with Wolfe and Archie as likely ear witnesses.

However, Wolfe has a sense that someone is trying to make a fool of him and sets out to uncover the truth of what really happened and how the suicide of a formerly promising actress plays into what happened. He sends Archie down to the office where the murdered woman worked to ask about correspondence from the actress who committed suicide.

The highlight of this story is when Archie wants to know why Wolfe is an investigating and Wolfe and Archie share a moment of detective zen when Wolfe opens Archie’s eyes to a key clue. All in all, the story has a good cast of characters and a solution that really shocked me.

9) Bitter End (1940): This was a reworking of Bad for Business, a novel for Rex Stout’s other Detective Tecumseh Fox. It was necessitated by Stout’s desire to make some money before he put all of his energy into fighting against Nazi Germany. It was published in a magazine in 1940, but not actually published in book form until ten years after Stout’s death.

I read the original novel but that’s hardly necessary. The reworking here is seamless. The plot begins when Wolfe gets a spiked candy from Tingley’s Tidbits. While the poison’s not deadly, it’s bitter and this is enough to get Wolfe on the warpath and make him more than willing to help the niece of the hated CEO of Tingley’s. Of course, the case takes on a whole new complexity when the CEO is murdered and the niece finds herself unconscious at the scence of the crime. The story is one of the best in the corpus and Archie really shines.

8) Christmas Party (1957) Archie connives to get a fake wedding license for a dancing partner who wants her to boss to marry her. The boss is being stubborn so Archie gets a fake marriage license blank with both their names on it to force the issue.

When Wolfe starts to get bossy and unreasonable in demanding Archie drive him to meet an orchid expert, Archie springs the marriage license on and tells him that he’s getting married. Wolfe is displeased but Archie gets out of the errand.

Archie ends up attending the Christmas Party where the boss is murdered and Santa mysteriously disappears after the crime is committed. Archie also can’t find the fake wedding license which has him at risk of a forgery charge. When Archie gets home he finds out that Santa was none other than Nero Wolfe, spying on him and his supposed fiancée. To make matters worse, a jealous young woman who believes Archie’s Faux fiancee was the murderess demands that Wolfe connive to help frame her. Otherwise, Wolfe will have to endure the embarrassment of being exposed as Santa. Wolfe and Archie are in a pickle and it takes all of Wolfe’s wits to get them out.

7) Instead of Evidence (1946) A partner in a novelty company comes to Wolfe convinced that his business partner’s going to kill him. He doesn’t Wolfe to prevent the murder, only to catch the murderer. Wolfe balks at the paltry $5000 offered to him as the bulk of it will be taken by taxes. However, he offers to report what the man has told him to  the police and take whatever action he deems appropriate.

The man is murdered by a potent exploding cigar  and Wolfe reports his visit to the police.  Dealing with people in the novelty industry allows Stout’s humor to run wild as the murder victim’s partner manages to chase Wolfe out of his own office. As usual, Archie is frustrated with the pace of Wolfe’s investigation. But don’t worry, this is one story that ends with a bang.

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EP1454: Dragnet: The Spring Street Gang

Jack Webb

Friday and Romero investigate a large gang of criminal teenagers.

Original Air Date: December 1, 1949

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Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Poor Little Rich Girl Matter (EP1453)

Bob Bailey

Johnny is called into investigate when a beautiful woman wants to take out a $250,000 life insurance policy on her husband as a surprise.

Original Air Date: September 1, 1957

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EP1452: Nick Carter: The Case of the Chemical Chickens

Lon Clark

When Waldo buys eggs laced with nitroglycerin, Nick sets out to find a criminal conspiracy behind it.

Original Air Date: April 13, 1947

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EP1451: Philip Marlowe: The Key Man

Gerald Mohr
Marlowe is hired to protect a businessman from being murdered before leaving for New York.  When the man is murdered, Marlowe has to figure out whodunit.

Original Air Date: June 25, 1949

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EP1450: Crime and Peter Chambers: The Missing Earring Murder

Dane Clark
A case of mistaken identity and a missing earring lead Pete to an investigation of an elderly man’s apparent suicide.

Original Air Date: June 1, 1954

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The Saint: Santa Claus is No Saint (EP1449)

Vincent Prince
While dressed as Santa, Simon is mistaken for a man who made off with an expensive necklace. Simon spends Christmas Eve trying to catch a thief and a murderer.

Original Air Date: December 24, 1950

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EP1448s: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Nick Shurn Matter Omnibus

Bob Bailey
At Christmastime, Johnny searches for a woman who witnessed a murder in which an underworld kingpin is suspected. Johnny travels to her small Michigan hometown to find her. There he encounters suspicion from her friends and family, and finds that the mob is already closing in.

Original Air Dates: December 19-23, 1955

When making your travel plans, remember http://johnnydollarair.com
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Book Review: Hang by the Neck


I picked up a copy of Hang by the Neck out of curiosity as I’d listened to the Crime and Peter Chambers golden age radio program and was curious what the books were like.

The answer is very much the same, only with a more complex plot.

In the book, Pete is hired by Johnny the Mick to go pick up a suitcase from Johnny’s apartment. However, Pete finds the body of a beautiful woman and then the police come up and haul Johnny and Pete off to jail. Chambers released only to come home and find the body of Johnny the Mick hanging from his window.

The police conclude that Johnny murdered the girl and committed suicide but Pete knows Johnny the Mick well enough to not buy the explanation.

What follows is Chambers’ questioning and conversing with a wide variety of shady characters to get to the truth. The suspects are pretty much stock characters for a hard boiled detective novel: the seductive performer, the charming model, the shady night club owner. The one exception to this is an ex-boxer turned painter which was a nice touch. There’s also a great speech from a cop about what private investigators are for and what they ought stick to investigating. Though later events in the book make the speech more than a tad ironic.

Radio programs were known for taking massive liberities when bringing detectives not named Sherlock Holmes to the microphone, so I was surprised to find that the characters in the book spoke exactly like the radio program with some very stylized dialogue. However, reading it, there were points were the style could be a tad wearying with a few too many pages filled with rapid fire one-liners between Chambers and someone he was questioning.

Rating the book is hard. Overall, Hang By Your Neck is average or perhaps a bit above average hard boiled detective novel. However, it doesn’t approach greatness and is by no means essential for fans of the genre. Certainly Peter Chambers isn’t in the class of Philip Marlowe, Archie Goodwin, or Nick Charles. However, if you want to read a 1950s Detective novels to pass the time, this isn’t a bad choice.

Rating: 3.25 out of 5.0

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EP1448: Dragnet: The Big Little Jesus

Jack Webb
Joe Friday and Frank Smith investigate the theft of a statue of the child Jesus from a local church.

Original Air Date: December 22, 1953

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Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Missing Mouse Matter (EP1447)

Bob Bailey
Johnny has to find a singing mouse before a Christmas Eve show.

Original Air Date: December 23, 1956

When making your travel plans, remember http://johnnydollarair.com

 

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