Jonathan Latimer was an American crime writer who first was a reporter writing about the likes of Al Capone and Bugsy Moran for the Chicago Tribune and the Herald-Examiner. In the thirties he created a detective character called William Crane in a series of novels Latimer himself referred to as “half-boiled” as his stories were send ups of the likes of the hardboiled fiction of Hammett and Chandler.

This radio version of his story comes from the Molle Mystery Theater via the Armed Forces’ Mystery Playhouse. The radio version is much more a screwball than serious crime detection, though due to Latimer’s ability to create a serious crime story, it raises above a simple comedy.

Music under is Sidney Bechet and Bix Beiderbecke.