Created by Louis Joseph Vance (1879-1933) Louis Joseph Vance's MICHAEL LANYARD, better known as THE LONE WOLF, didn't start out as a private eye, but as a criminal. However, like Jack Boyle's Boston Blackie, thanks to his numerous reboots, reincarnations and re-imaginings in radio, film and television, The Lone Wolf is now remembered by many, … Continue reading The Lone Wolf (Michael Lanyard)
Tag: Radio
Blake Edwards’ Private Eyes
And Other Miscreants... Like his contemporary Roy Huggins, Blake Edwards must have had a real jones for the Shamus Game. Along with his genuine successes (everything from Richard Diamond and Peter Gunn to 10, S.O.B. and the Pink Panther movies), Edwards wrote, directed and/or produced several radio shows, films (both for television and the big … Continue reading Blake Edwards’ Private Eyes
Nick Danger
Created by The Firesign Theatre "Well, now, the gum's on the other shoe." -- Nick Danger, on a sudden plot shift, in The Case of the Missing Yolks .Even more than the literature, the classic radio eyes of the forties and fifties thrived on first person. And they did it in present tense, as in … Continue reading Nick Danger
Saturday-Night Theatre
Radio Anthology Series (1943-96, BBC 4) Saturday-Night Theatre was a weekly radio show on BBC Radio 4 that ran feature-length, standalone dramatizations on Saturday nights for over 50 years, dishing up plenty of crowd-pleasing thrillers, comedies and mysteries, with the usual Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes offerings. The plays—usually 90 minutes long--included stage plays, book … Continue reading Saturday-Night Theatre
Secret Agent X-9
Created by Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) and Alex Raymond (1909-56) Despite being a collaboration between possibly the greatest private eye writer of all time, and one of the all-time great comic strip artists, the action/adventure strip Secret Agent X-9 was always something of a disappointment. The strip was originally conceived by King Features to compete with … Continue reading Secret Agent X-9
Horace Rumpole
Created by John Mortimer (1923-2009 ) Down those mean streets and meaner chambers a man must waddle... Lord knows, he's not a private eye--but I wish he were. Like Philip Marlowe, HORACE RUMPOLE is "a relatively poor man... a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, … Continue reading Horace Rumpole
Steve Mallory
Created by Douglas Heyes Pseudonyms include Matthew Howard (1919-1993) STEVE MALLORY is a partner in a small detective agency based in Los Angeles, that employs, besides his partner, Harry Jellison, at least three other ops. That's the set-up, anyway, in the 1951 novel The Kiss-Off, a quick, hard read that's one of those almost-forgotten treasures … Continue reading Steve Mallory
Bill Lance (The Adventures of Bill Lance)
Created by J. Donald Wilson (1904-84) There were actually two separate version of the radio series The Adventures of Bill Lance, a radio show detailing the exploits of a wealthy, Los Angeles-based musical composer and behavioral criminologist whose cases took him all over the globe. An expert on the arts and sciences, he was often … Continue reading Bill Lance (The Adventures of Bill Lance)
Dirk Gently
Created by Douglas Adams (1952-2001) THAT Douglas Adams? The guy with the BBC show and the Vogons and the towels and the three-armed Betelgeusians? Yup, that Douglas Adams. So now he's writing about trenchcoats, fedoras, smoky jazz, and femmes fatales? Well, no... Even in an era of maverick and increasingly non-traditional P.I.'s, DIRK GENTLY defies … Continue reading Dirk Gently
Purkis and Wilburt Flower (The Flower Case)
Created by James Saunders The Flower Case was a radio mini-series broadcast as part of the CBC's The Mystery Project in 2000, featuring rival private investigators PURKIS and WILBURT FLOWER, who just happen to be father and son. Neither's exactly setting the world on fire (or getting any younger) though, and both have resorted to taking domestic … Continue reading Purkis and Wilburt Flower (The Flower Case)