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Bob Bailey & Virginia Gregg in front of an old Microphone

Bob Bailey & Virginia Gregg

Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio! A podcast featuring the best vintage detective radio programs. Each week from Monday through Saturday, we feature six of Old Time Radio's great detective series from the beginning of the show to its very last episode. And as a bonus, twice a month we also post a public domain movie or TV mystery or detective show video.

Along the way, I'll provide you my commentary and offer you opportunities to interact.

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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

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EP1446: Nick Carter: Nick Carter’s Christmas Adventure

Lon Clark

Nick Carter investigates why a rich man has soured on Christmas.

Original Air Date: December 25, 1943

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EP1445: Philip Marlowe: The Busy Body

Gerald Mohr
Marlowe investigates a case where a body is found and keeps disappearing.

Original Air Date: June 18, 1949

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EP1444: Crime and Peter Chambers: The Dentist and the Extortion Murder

Dane Clark

A dentist comes to Pete believing he killed a man and wants Pete’s help to decide whether to blackmail money.

Original Air Date: May 25, 1954

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EP1443: The Saint: The Frightened Author

Vincent Price
The writer of a novel based on the real life affair between a fighter and a manager’s wife turns to the Saint when he fears he’ll be murdered.

Original Air Date: July 23, 1950

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