Old Time Radio Shows

How does one become an expert on murder? According to the creators of Murder By Experts , expertise in murder is demonstrated by writing about murder in a highly entertaining fashion. No university has a recognized degree program in murder, and consulting someone with "experience in the field" is too ghastly to contemplate. The subject itself seems too ghastly to consider, but murder mysteries make for highly entertaining fair and they are the centerpiece of the majority of the crime dramas which filled the air during the Golden Age of Radio. The average listener might drive a few miles over the speed limit on occasion or could neglect to tell Uncle Sam the whole truth on their tax returns, but by and large, they are law-abiding people who would go out of their way to help their fellow man. The psychological makeup of someone who is actually capable of murder is fascinating to behold. Remember the old joke about going to a party dressed as a homicidal maniac? ...

We know that the airwaves after WWII were littered with corpses, but the collection of bodies were nowhere near as interesting as the collection of hard-boiled gum shoes who seemed to keep tripping over them. There are as many theories as to why hard-boiled detectives became so popular as there were producers and sponsors willing to cash in on the trend. They were as cheap to produce as they were popular, and since they were an outgrowth of the pulp detective fiction of the 1920's and 30's, there was plenty of material to use. As uniform as the hard-boiled detectives seem, each was played with their own quirks and idiosyncrasies. One of the most successful and long lasting hard-boiled dicks was Brett Halliday's Michael Shayne . Halliday was actually one of the pen names used by Davis Dresser, but Halliday was not the only writer to use the name. Shayne appeared in 77 novels, 300 short stories, a dozen films, a TV series and a number of radio iterations. Dresser apparent...