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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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Recent Posts

EP1397: Philip Marlowe: The Cloak of Kamehameha

Gerald Mohr
Marlowe is sent to Hawaii to facilitate the sale of an all-feather cloak to find someone bordered his plane under Marlowe’s name.

Original Air Date: April 23, 1949

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EP1396: Easy Money: The Basketball Pool Racket

Larry Haines
When a basketball player is shot, Mike Trent blames the big basketball pool cartel and has a plan to bring it down by picking up all twelve games in the pool.

Original Air Date: January 6, 1955

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EP1395: The Saint: The Case of the Unhappy Homicide

Vincent Price
The owner of a jewelry store wants the Saint to prove he murdered his partner.

Original Air Date: November 6,1949

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EP1394: Dragnet: Police Academy

Jack Webb
Friday and Romero investigate a series of robberies while a friend tries to join the Police Academy.

Original Air Date: August 25, 1949

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Book Review: The Little Sister

The Little Sister shows some features of some of the best Marlowe stories, but the fifth book in this series just doesn’t stand up to its predecessors.

In The Little Sister it starts simply enough when a bored Marlowe is hired by the little sister of a man who moved to LA from Manhattan, Kansas and has stopped writing.

As is usual, Marlowe plunges into a case that gets him into the midst of a shady underworld, of Hollywood, and of course puts him on the bad side of police.

The story is worth reading once and has some classic Marlowe moments. Towards the end of the book, a couple of cops who’ve had to put up with Marlowe playing fast and loose with murders and bodies tell Marlowe off and it’s a beautiful moment when the characters come to life.

It is a rare moment in this story. In 250 pages, I lost track of how many bodies were dropped and who killed them all. So many characters come and go, we really get no impression of them. There’s no character in this book I really connected with in the same way I did with characters in, “Lady in the Lake,” and “The Big Sleep.”

Another thing that hurts the book is the focus. In the first four novels, Marlowe’s scorn is directed at big city crime, crooked Los Angeles (and nearby communities) police forces. Marlowe’s bile is justified because he knows of what he speaks. In the Little Sister, he uses a combination of a dirty mind and experience with two kids from Manhattan, Kansas as the basis for all sorts of psychological deductions about what a small town is like. It feels less like Marlowe’s making street wise observations on life and more like he’s expressing poorly informed prejudices.

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a bad book, but it doesn’t measure up to Chandler’s other works.

Rating: 3.0 out of 5.0

 

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EP1393: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Funny Money Matter

Bob Bailey

Johnny investigates when an insured pays off his policy with thousands of dollars in counterfeit money.

Original Air Date: June 30, 1957

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

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EP1392: Nick Carter: The Case of the Clumsy Forgeries

Lon Clark

Nick investigates the case of a wealthy heart patient who appears to have been murdered.

Original Air Date: June 11, 1946

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