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Mystery, Crime & Detective · Mutual

The Crime Club

December 2, 1946 – October 16, 1947 · 47 broadcasts

The telephone rings, and a voice you will never quite place answers it: "Yes, this is the Crime Club. I'm the Librarian." An organ shivers somewhere in the dark of the reading room, you are shown to the easy chair by the window, the book comes down off the shelf -- and the story begins. That framing device carried The Crime Club through 47 broadcasts on the Mutual Broadcasting System between December 2, 1946 and October 16, 1947. The series took its name and its material from Doubleday's Crime Club, the mystery imprint that had been turning out detective novels since 1928, and each week the Librarian "read" the listener one of them: a fog-bound island, a body wrapped as a museum mummy, a lion tamer killed by his own act, a judge who cannot bring himself to pass a death sentence. Roger Bower, who spent twenty-four years at WOR in New York, produced and directed; Stedman Coles adapted most of the scripts. The Librarian himself was played by Barry Thomson and by Raymond Edward Johnson, whose voice American listeners already knew as "Raymond," the ghoulish host of Inner Sanctum Mysteries. Thirty-one of the 47 broadcasts survive. The other sixteen are known only from the log -- dates on a page, and six of them without even a title.

Collection status: 31 of 47 held (66% complete)
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Episode Spine

Grouped by year. Jump to the full list below, or open a season on its own page.

1946

December 2, 1946 Death Blew Out the Match Listen (MP3)
The series opens on an island cut off by fog, where a killing points straight at the butler -- which is exactly the problem.
December 9, 1946 For the Hangman
December 16, 1946 Under a Cloud
December 23, 1946 (untitled)
December 30, 1946 (untitled)

1947

January 2, 1947 (untitled)
January 9, 1947 (untitled)
January 16, 1947 (untitled)
January 23, 1947 Mr. Smith's Hat Listen (MP3)
Gilbert Shannon phones the police to report his own murder; seconds later his daughter phones to report the same thing, and Inspector McKee inherits a single fingerprint.
January 30, 1947 Murder Goes Astray
February 6, 1947 Flower for the Judge
February 13, 1947 Murder Solves a Problem
February 20, 1947 Call Me Pandora
February 27, 1947 The Case of the Absent Minded Professor
March 6, 1947 (untitled)
March 13, 1947 Fear Came First Listen (MP3)
Two killings have already happened in an empty house where four women are circling the same inheritance.
March 20, 1947 Dead Man's Control Listen (MP3)
A millionaire dies at his open wall safe and a large diamond vanishes with him -- then comes back far sooner than any thief would allow.
March 27, 1947 Silent Witness Listen (MP3)
A sleeping woman is woken by two gunshots. The body turned up soon after with one wound.
April 3, 1947 The Sun Is a Witness Listen (MP3)
A developed roll of film gives up its murderer in the angle of its shadows.
April 10, 1947 The Gray Mist Murders Listen (MP3)
A private yacht bound for Hawaii turns into a killing ground before it makes port.
April 17, 1947 Death Cuts a Silhouette
April 24, 1947 The Topaz Flower Listen (MP3)
The topaz pieces missing from a murdered man surface the following day behind a pawnbroker's counter.
May 1, 1947 Epitaph for Lydia Listen (MP3)
Claustrophobia turns out to be the lever that opens a murder case, in Virginia Rath's story of a missing woman found by death.
May 8, 1947 The Corpse Wore a Wig Listen (MP3)
A doctor's death ties back to a wig, a mounted moosehead and a rare poison.
May 15, 1947 Death Is a Genius
May 22, 1947 Murder on Margin Listen (MP3)
A stockbroker is killed, and it is his shoes that finish the case.
May 29, 1947 Murder Makes a Mummy Listen (MP3)
Barney Crawford, a police chief's son with ambitions in Egyptology, finds a body wrapped and displayed among the museum's mummies.
June 5, 1947 Murder Rents a Room Listen (MP3)
Sarah Elizabeth Mason's story of a boarding house where a wealthy man dies and most of his fortune goes missing -- with a wastrel nephew close at hand.
June 12, 1947 Death Is a Knockout Listen (MP3)
A boxer's shot at the title is destroyed by a killing.
June 19, 1947 Hearses Don't Hurry Listen (MP3)
Special prosecutor Christopher Chance, sent to clean up a district attorney's office, comes to suspect his own mentor's daughter of a string of killings.
June 26, 1947 Death Never Doubles Listen (MP3)
Young lawyer Peter Woods is offered $5,000 for a case his fiancee distrusts -- because a gang has mistaken him for the crook he happens to resemble.
July 3, 1947 Death at 7:10 Listen (MP3)
H. F. S. Moore's story, told in flashback: a thoroughly hated woman dies of atropine poisoning in a mystery writer's train compartment.
July 10, 1947 Coney Island Nocturne Listen (MP3)
Detective Mike Donahue takes his fiancee to Coney Island, loses his wallet to a thief in the crowd, and later finds it on a dead man.
July 17, 1947 Death Deals a Diamond Listen (MP3)
Hal Hampton comes out of a five-year sentence for diamond theft, and a knock at his hotel door frames him for a robbery he did not commit.
July 24, 1947 Serenade Macabre Listen (MP3)
Louise Parnell and Roy Turner mean to let an untrained lion do their killing for them, and the circus's last performance belongs to death.
July 31, 1947 Self Made Corpse Listen (MP3)
A small, timid man walks into Spades Diamond's nightclub and asks the country's most successful gang leader to help him rob a bank. They say yes.
August 7, 1947 A Pitch in Time Listen (MP3)
The annual police-versus-firemen ballgame in Spencer Town is interrupted by a bank robbery, and by the trusting young patrolman nobody could explain.
August 14, 1947 The Gypsy Sings of Death Listen (MP3)
Toby Randolph's tea leaves are read in a nightclub caravan, a bracelet goes missing, and Broadway columnist Paul Palmer follows both to a murder.
August 21, 1947 A Deed Indeed Listen (MP3)
Mark and Julia Manning are handed the deed to a nightclub by a stranger. Inside it they find contraband, and then a body.
August 28, 1947 Death Swims at Midnight Listen (MP3)
A detective's seaside holiday ends at a body on the sand, and the quiet resort beach turns out to keep worse things than driftwood.
September 4, 1947 Sometimes a Sucker Wins Listen (MP3)
A woman searching for her missing brother unlocks the wrong door and finds a killing behind it.
September 11, 1947 Fish for Entry Listen (MP3)
Barney Crawford goes fishing with his queasy fiancee and hauls up a body from the harbour with a dead fish in its pocket.
September 18, 1947 A Frame for Murder
September 25, 1947 No Time for Murder Listen (MP3)
Lawyer Peter Woods kills time at a Madison Avenue bookshop window and is drawn into stolen diamonds and a collection of antique clocks.
October 2, 1947 Cowhide Listen (MP3)
A nervous clerk, a suitcase holding half a million in securities and an old man who has disappeared put a private detective onto murder.
October 9, 1947 Sentence of Death Listen (MP3)
Paul Remson, a popular new judge who has always opposed capital punishment, must pass a death sentence on a convicted murderer.
October 16, 1947 Cupid Can Be Deadly Listen (MP3)
In the series finale, actress Lynda Barrie's rambling Westchester house holds a weekend party, a hypnotist's influence, bad dreams and a killing.
The Story

The telephone rings, and a voice you will never quite place answers it: "Yes, this is the Crime Club. I'm the Librarian." An organ shivers somewhere in the dark of the reading room, you are shown to the easy chair by the window, the book comes down off the shelf -- and the story begins. That framing device carried The Crime Club through 47 broadcasts on the Mutual Broadcasting System between December 2, 1946 and October 16, 1947. The series took its name and its material from Doubleday's Crime Club, the mystery imprint that had been turning out detective novels since 1928, and each week the Librarian "read" the listener one of them: a fog-bound island, a body wrapped as a museum mummy, a lion tamer killed by his own act, a judge who cannot bring himself to pass a death sentence. Roger Bower, who spent twenty-four years at WOR in New York, produced and directed; Stedman Coles adapted most of the scripts. The Librarian himself was played by Barry Thomson and by Raymond Edward Johnson, whose voice American listeners already knew as "Raymond," the ghoulish host of Inner Sanctum Mysteries. Thirty-one of the 47 broadcasts survive. The other sixteen are known only from the log -- dates on a page, and six of them without even a title.

Full story — coming soon while it's being curated.
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