Talk Back

[edting]

84. The Adventure of the Murdered Moths by Ellery Queen (2005)

I’m impressed by what the Dannay/Lee cousins have done. In addition to writing all those Ellery Quuen novels, they wrote some 350 radio scripts between 1939 and 1948. At their peak, they had some 15 million listeners each week.

14 of the radio scripts are collected here. All are excellent. They feature Ellery, his father Richard, his secretary Nikki Porter, and Sergeant Velie. The roles are changed somewhat. Nikki is a love interest, and Velie is there for comic relief. The plots are varied – dying messages, locked room murders, “supernatural” deaths, and some bizarre situations (a scarecrow is found bleeding in one story.)

If the show played anything like the scripts read, it must have been very entertaining radio. You really get the feel of old-time radio. As usual, just before the ending, the show stops and a CHALLENGE TO THE LISTENER appears. In the show, they had a live studio judge panel, made up of celebrities, sports figures, politicians, etc who were invited to match wits with Ellery. All were asked to make their best guess as to who did it. After the studio jury had their say, Ellery would reveal the identity of the killer, and how they did it.

I hope they decide to publish more of these.

http://www.bangtherockstogether.com/ed/eqstatus.html