Boston Blackie, Volume 4

Boston Blackie, Volume 1

• ORIGINAL (9 hrs and 12 mins)
• By Jack Boyle
• Narrated By full cast

That's Boston Blackie, safecracker turned crime fighter and a long-running favorite with fans of straight-ahead detective fiction in a wide range of media. Beginning inauspiciously in a 1919 short story by author Jack Boyle, Blackie progressed from the printed page into silent films, then into talkies - and finally, in the 1940s, into radio. The first radio Blackie was Chester Morris, who played the role in a long series of B movies during the 1940s.

The Whistler - More Than 500 Radio Shows!, Volume 1

• ORIGINAL (100 hrs and 4 mins)
• By J. Donald Wilson
• Narrated By Bill Forman

The Whistler was a radio mystery anthology that debuted on CBS Radio on May 16, 1942. The show was heard only on the West Coast and had Signal Oil as the main sponsor. There were attempts to broadcast the show on the East Coast, one in July to September 1946 and the other in March 1947 to September 1948, with Campbell Soup and Household Finance as the suggested sponsors.

Richard Diamond, Private Detective, Vol. 1: Old Time Radio Shows

• ORIGINAL (19 hrs and 50 mins)
• By Blake Edwards
• Narrated By Dick Powell

Hollywood's beloved song and dance man, Dick Powell, turned gumshoe in this 1945-era detective yarn. At once a tough-talking detective working with police to solve tough murder cases and yet an affable crooner who ended nearly every episode singing to his girlfriend in his rich baritone voice. Whether murder or music, Dick Powell beguiled radio audiences through 100+ episodes before the show moved to television and the role was eventually taken over by David Janssen, later the star of The Fugitive.

Great Radio Detectives

• ORIGINAL (9 hrs and 30 mins)
• By various writers
• Narrated By Vincent Price, Bob Bailey, Dick Powell

Gunshots, fist fights, and footsteps in the dark! Come hear crime and mystery, action and suspense with radio's greatest detectives! Ten hours of bracing crime-stopping broadcasts bring you Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade, The Saint, The Shadow, Johnny Dollar, Bulldog Drummond - and 14 more favorites! Vincent Price, Bob Bailey, Basil Rathbone, Howard Duff, Dick Powell, and more star in 20 tales that are hard boiled and heroic, brilliant and bloody.

The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe

• ORIGINAL (9 hrs and 42 mins)
• By Alfred Bester
• Narrated By Sydney Greenstreet

He's the smartest and the most stubborn, the fattest and the laziest, the cleverest and the craziest - the most extravagant detective in the world. Yes, it is Nero Wolfe, Rex Stout's gourmand orchid fancier and one of the most eccentric and unique detectives ever to hit the airwaves. Starring character actor Sydney Greenstreet (The Maltese Falcon), The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe is an immensely entertaining mystery series that remains a true delight even 60 years after it was first broadcast.

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, Volume 1

• ORIGINAL (12 hrs and 8 mins)
• By John Dawson, Robert Ryf, Les Crutchfield
• Narrated By Bob Bailey

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar began in 1949 as a typical slam-bang detective series, and though consistently well written and acted, the series never really captured an enthusiastic audience. However, in the fall of 1955, Bob Bailey took over the title role; veteran director Jack Johnstone and writers John Dawson, Robert Ryf, and Les Crutchfield joined the production team; and the series was transformed into a quarter-hour, five-a-week strip show.

Boston Blackie

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 55 mins)
• By Jack Boyle
• Narrated By Mike Dennis
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Friend to those who have no friend! Enemy to those who would make him an enemy! It's Boston Blackie, safecracker supreme and inspiration for countless Hollywood films as well as radio and TV shows. Jack Boyle's crime fiction short stories and novellas, set in San Francisco, featuring this timeless character were originally published in magazines in 1915 then compiled into this suspense collection in 1919. The stories, however, link from one to the next, so there is continuity throughout the audiobook.

Inner Sanctum Mysteries: Oldtime Radio Shows

• ORIGINAL (66 hrs and 11 mins)
• By Radio Revival
• Narrated By Old Time Radio

This is an collection of Inner Sanctum Mysteries, an oldtime radio show from the 1940s and 1950s. If you love a good horror story, you'll love these. You get all these (and many others plus more of the same genre):

• Homicidal Maniac
• The Tell-Tale Heart
• Song of the Slasher
• Murder Comes to Life
• Death on the Highway
• The Scream
• Island of Death
• Man From Yesterday
• Color Blind Formula
• Desert Death

Casey, Crime Photographer, Volume 1

• ORIGINAL (9 hrs and 50 mins)
• By George Harmon Coxe
• Narrated By full cast

The origins of Jack "Flashgun" Casey can be traced to the 1930s detective pulp magazine Black Mask; the hard-boiled photojournalist was introduced in the March 1934 issue by former newspaperman/ad exec George Harmon Coxe. Radio audiences received a formal introduction to Coxe's creation over CBS Radio beginning on July 7, 1943.

Orson Welles: The Ultimate Collection

• ORIGINAL (60 hrs and 44 mins)
• By Orson Welles
• Narrated By Orson Welles

If you are a lover of old-time radio and a fan of Orson Welles, you won't want to miss this treasure chest of legendary Orson Welles radio broadcasts! With his flair for the sensational and innovative, Welles captured audiences' attention with his 1930s CBS weekly drama series The Mercury Theatre on the Air, later renamed The Campbell Playhouse, which featured hour-long dramatizations of classic books. His 1938 production, The War of the Worlds (an H. G. Wells adaptation) was especially memorable, as were many other productions, each featuring talented voices and actors.

The Shadow - The Complete Radio Show Collection - Including more than 250 Shows

• ORIGINAL (106 hrs and 41 mins)
• By Orson Welles
• Narrated By Orson Welles

The Shadow was long believed to have debuted on radio as a program in its own right on September 26, 1937, on the Mutual Broadcasting System. But the character actually premiered in September 1931, on CBS, as part of the hourlong The Blue Coal Radio Revue (named for the show's sponsor), featuring Frank Readick - The Shadow announcer of Detective Stories - as The Shadow, and playing Sundays at 5:30 p.m. Eastern standard time.

Crime Club

• ORIGINAL (14 hrs and 9 mins)
• By PDQ Audiobooks
• Narrated By Barry Thompson

Based on the Doubleday Crime Club book series, Crime Club burst onto the airways as a 30-minute murder mystery hosted by Barry Thompson. Each week's episode started with a phone ringing twice, then answered by Thompson in his eerie voice "I hope I haven't kept you waiting. Yes, this is the Crime Club. I'm the librarian." These 29 commercial-free episodes represent the best of one of old-time radio's crime dramas.. Excellent stories, acting, and production values make for a great listen.

Jimmy Stewart - Radio Collection

• ORIGINAL (9 hrs and 20 mins)
• By Jimmy Stewart
• Narrated By Jimmy Stewart

This collection features 13 of the best radio performances by one of America's most beloved stars.

The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: 60-Episode Set

• ORIGINAL (28 hrs and 22 mins)
• By PDQ AudioWorks, Arthur Conan Doyle
• Narrated By Basil Rathbone

The world-famous sleuth is back in this astounding 60-episode collection (many previously believed to have been lost) direct from the original radio broadcasts. Featuring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, this collection contains nearly 30 hours of Old Time Radio broadcasting at its best. Digitally remastered from the original broadcast recordings, this amazing set is a true collector's item for Sherlock Holmes fans everywhere!

Poirot's Finest Cases: Eight Full-Cast BBC Radio Dramatisations

• ORIGINAL (15 hrs and 36 mins)
• By Agatha Christie
• Narrated By John Moffat, Full Cast

John Moffatt stars as the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The ABC Murders: A chilling letter sets the sleuth on the trail of an enigmatic killer. After the Funeral: A wealthy businessman is dead, and his sister thinks it was murder. Death on the Nile: Poirot is in Egypt when a chilling murder takes place. Peril at End House: Whilst on holiday, the sleuth encounters a young woman, a hat and a bullet. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: Mrs Farrars is found dead, one year after the death of her husband.

Adventures of Philip Marlowe Vol 1

• ORIGINAL (26 hrs and 1 min)
• By PDQ Audiobooks
• Narrated By Gerald Mohr Van Heflin

The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, Volume 1 is a collection of the only known episodes to exist from its run on both NBC and CBS radio. Originally called "The New Adventures of Philip Marlowe," the private eye series, based on the character and books created by Raymond Chandler, made its debut on the NBC radio network on June 17, 1947, with Van Heflin in the role of Marlowe. The first episode adapted Chandler's short story "Red Wind."

The Shadow: Radio Treasures

• ORIGINAL (8 hrs and 29 mins)
• By Fran Striker
• Narrated By Orson Welles, Margot Stevenson, Agnes Moorehead, and others

Radio listeners first heard the sinister laugh of The Shadow on July 31, 1930. This 80th anniversary treasury includes two never-before-released shows starring Orson Welles and Margot Stevenson - "Revenge on the Shadow" and "The Hospital Murders" - from previously lost transcription records. This 9-hour digitally restored and remastered collection also includes the premiere broadcast of the 1937 radio revival.

Theater Five - The Ultimate Collections

• ORIGINAL (89 hrs and 8 mins)
• By ABC Radio
• Narrated By full cast

Theater Five was ABC's attempt to revive radio drama during the early 1960s. The series name was derived from its time slot, 5:00 p.m. Running Monday through Friday, it was an anthology of short stories, each about 20 minutes long. News programs and commercials filled out the full 30 minutes. There was a good bit of science fiction, and some of the plots seem to have been taken from the daily newspaper. Fred Foy of The Lone Ranger fame was an ABC staff announcer in the early '60s who, among other duties, did Theater Five.