Walker Devereaux
Created by James W. Nichol

One of the best series airing as part of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's The Mystery Project is Midnight Cab", which was aired in three runs of 13 episodes, 9 episodes, and 13 episodes (making a total of 35 episodes for the series).  The first series probably ran in 1992, with the second series going into 1993-1994. I have no tapes from the third series, so I have no idea about the dates for that one at all. It also evidently made an appearance on Australian radio circa 1996.

The show starred David Ferry as WALKER DEVEREAUX, a young man, rather gullible and naive, from Bear River (north of Lake Superior) who comes to Toronto in order to become an author and winds up driving a cab on the midnight shift.  From the start, he keeps running into problems (such as that body that someone left in the trunk of his cab), and he solves the mysteries with the help of his girlfriend, wheelchair-bound Krista Papadopoulos (who dispatches cabs), Alfonso Piatelli (his boss), and Metro Police Inspector Wilfred Kiss (a friendly homicide cop).  Each episode is fairly self-contained, but the series builds on its past episodes as well, so we see Walker's developing relationship with Krista, his coming to terms with the big city, etc.

And in 2002, Nichol released Midnight Cab, the first in what could be a series of novels. In what serves as a sort of prequel to the series, Walker arrives in Toronto, intent on tracking down the parents who abandoned himAt the cab company where he works, Walker befriends the night dispatcher, Krista, a pretty, brave young woman. Wheelchair bound but resourceful, she helps him crack the code of his parents' identity. But the quest to discover his mother's whereabouts swiftly becomes perilous as Walker finds himself within the deadly grasp of Bobby, a young sociopath who has matured from early cruelty to murderous pleasure.

Imagine the pulp's Steve Midnight updated, and softboiled for the nineties.

James W. Nichol has been a prominent playwright in Canada since 1970, and one of the founders of the CBC's Mystery Project, His adaptation of Margaret Laurence's Stone Angel is currently revived in productions across Canada, and Peggy Delaney, his most recent radio series, is currently airing on The Mystery Project.

UNDER OATH

• On the novel, Midnight Cab: "Take one nineteen-year-old determined to discover the identity of his parents, team him up with a rebellious young woman tied as much to her family as to her wheelchair, and threaten him with the sick violence of an unknown psychopath. The result: a mesmerizing story of two unforgettable people whose pairing is as gratifying as it is unlikely." (Timothy Findley)

RADIO

• MIDNIGHT CAB
  (1992-96?, CBC)
  35 30-minute episodes
  Written by W. Nichols
  Starring as David Ferry as WALKER DEVEREAUX
  .

• "The Mystery of the Blue-Eyed Man"
• "The Mystery of 22 Crier Drive"
• "The Mystery of the Horse-Faced Man"
• "The Mystery of the Motherless Child"
• "The Mystery of the Falling Man"
• "The Mystery of the Face in the Window"
• "The Mystery of the Child Holding a Dove"
• "The Mystery of the Outdoorsman"
• "The Mystery of the Screaming Woman"
• "The Mystery of the Drowning Man"
• "The Mystery of the Friendless Man"
• "The Mystery of the Vanishing Cab"
• "The Mystery of the Great Escape"
• "The Mystery of the Silver Rings"
• "The Mystery of the Great Man"
• "The Mystery of the Locked Room"
• "The Mystery of the Screaming Kettle"
• "The Mystery of the Lost Child"
• "The Mystery of the Family Portrait"
• "The Mystery of the Red-Headed Man"
• "The Mystery of the Self-Made Man"

NOVELS

• Midnight Cab (2002)...Buy this book

Contributed by Geoff Loker.