Jack Boyle
500 episodes listed below
Fast noir puzzles with a crooked grin.
Boston Blackie - Moonlight Radio is a scripted crime serial where Blackie keeps walking into murders, robberies, kidnappings, and setups. The pleasure is the pace: a clue, a threat, a wisecrack, then another door opens.
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Boston Blackie - Moonlight Radio is a scripted crime-noir feed built around tight little traps. Blackie rarely enters a scene gently. He turns up at police headquarters needling Inspector Faraday, gets accused of murder, slips an arrest, or takes a job because someone claims there is a mystery he cannot solve. The cases move fast. A friend wants missing blueprints recovered quietly. A woman in a hotel lobby leaves with the wrong man. A nurse is pulled into a private-house emergency under false pretenses. Jewel robberies, diamond thefts, kidnappings, skating rink murders, and suspicious doctors all fit the same pressure-cooker shape. Someone knows too much. Someone else is lying. Then Blackie asks the pointed question that makes the room smaller. The show’s charm is its refusal to treat danger as solemn for very long. Guns appear, bodies are found, and jail is always close, but a line of dry banter usually arrives before the scene can turn heavy. Inspector Faraday is the recurring friction point, quick to arrest and just as quick to be outmaneuvered. Charlie Kingston appears in the Sam Bellows case as the friend whose quiet request starts a messy murder investigation. The dialogue has the feel of actors stepping into a room already in motion. It favors plain talk over atmosphere. Doors, telephones, safes, hotel desks, kitchens, and police offices do most of the work. Some episodes in the feed open with unrelated modern ads or news fragments, so the listening experience can feel a little patched together before the drama begins. The core appeal remains sturdy. These are compact, talk-driven crime puzzles with theatrical stakes, clean momentum, and a central troublemaker who solves cases by refusing to stand still.
Made for: Best for listeners who like vintage-style scripted crime, brisk dialogue, mistaken identities, and cases solved through pressure rather than forensic detail. It also fits anyone who wants short, plot-heavy radio drama with dry comic friction.
What sets it apart: The show pairs murder-and-robbery plotting with constant verbal sparring, especially when Blackie and Inspector Faraday collide. Its scenes feel less like narration and more like a string of confrontations already halfway lit.
Chronicles the exploits of a reformed thief turned detective, solving crimes with wit and charm.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Fast cases, verbal traps, and Faraday's comic frustration give Boston Blackie's vintage detection a particularly lively pulse.
Boston Blackie - Moonlight Radio makes detection feel like a running contest between Blackie's quick deductions and Inspector Faraday's determination to arrest him.
Boston Blackie turns being wanted for murder into your invitation to solve it first.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A brisk crime puzzle built on darts, bluffing, and a murder case that keeps changing hands.
Boston Blackie keeps the crime setup tight, turning a police-household chess match into a clean little puzzle. The banter lands quickly, with darts, bluffing, and Faraday making the wrong call on a confession that looks far too neat to trust.
A brisk bank-and-murder puzzle with sharp talk and mounting pressure.
Boston Blackie starts with a bank under pressure: a new president, a sudden demand for $100,000, and a former president trying to make sense of how quickly the ground shifted. The best part is the way the talk keeps tightening.
A jobsite murder becomes a brisk whodunit with a clean final snap.
On a building site, a dead foreman and a second warning turn the story into a tight murder puzzle. It stays close to the ground: workers argue about where Woods stood when he was shot, police comb the taller buildings for a clue, and Mary Wesley passes along Blackie's warning…
A backstage murder mystery that turns a locked dressing room and a messy romance into brisk crime fun.
A backstage romance gives way to a radio-era murder mystery, with Florence Wells snapping at Barbara Lane over Tom Johnson before vanishing from her dressing room and later turning up dead eight blocks away.
Boston Blackie works a forgery case through a dead witness and a clean trail of clues.
Boston Blackie turns a forgery case into a tight little ratchet. One man is already in jail, another is dead, and Blackie keeps circling three witnesses as each conversation trims the possibilities or opens a new angle.
Restored broadcasts, sharp shadows, bright old voices.
Blackie needles Inspector Faraday over a dart game and keeps steering the talk toward Sam Bellows.
Two characters execute a planned break-in to access a safe, coordinating their movements and maintaining stealth.
This news report covers multiple top stories including a deadly house fire investigation, another fire involving an elderly man, a murder case with a psychiatric exam, and a detailed weather forecast for Central New York.
A young woman named Alice Manletter arrives at a hotel lobby to meet the detective Boston Blackie, arranged by her uncle, but encounters confusion and intrigue as she tries to identify him.
A crime drama episode where gang members discuss trailing a doctor who visited a girl in jail, suspecting she revealed information that could compromise their plans.
A reformed thief turned detective solves crimes with wit and charm in this classic radio drama.
A detective posing as a doctor recruits a nurse for an urgent case, using a false identity to gain her cooperation.
Boston Blackie is awakened by an insurance agent offering a $10,000 mystery he claims Blackie cannot solve.
A reformed thief turned detective investigates a clock with a poison needle, encountering a woman connected to his past.
A fictional audio drama following Boston Blackie, a reformed thief who solves crimes with wit and charm.
A gangster tries to bribe a boxer named Larry to throw his upcoming fight against Savini in exchange for $10,000.
Boston Blackie gets tangled up in a bank crisis.
A foreman is dead.
Florence Wells picks a fight with Barbara Lane over Tom Johnson.
Blackie is trying to clear Jack King, who is locked up on a forgery charge.
Boston Blackie and Mary investigate a mysterious carousel running at 2 a.m.
A detective hired to dig up dirt on a political candidate learns that Boston Blackie's wife may have the key information.
A reformed thief turned detective confronts three relatives who stand to inherit his fortune if he is murdered.
A reformed thief turned detective is accused of stealing a pearl necklace and must clear his name.
A classic radio drama episode featuring Boston Blackie, a former thief now solving crimes, as he receives a mysterious phone call from London.
A reformed thief turned detective solves crimes with wit and charm in this classic radio drama.
A psychiatrist discovers a murdered patient and calls the police, leading to the involvement of detective Boston Blackie.
A reformed thief turned detective plays billiards with a friend who struggles with amnesia and his mysterious past.
A fictional detective solves crimes with wit and charm in this classic radio drama.
Boston Blackie and his friend Lardy board a ship for an overnight trip, discovering a mysterious suitcase full of tear gas.
A fictional detective, Boston Blackie, solves crimes with wit and charm in this classic radio drama episode.
Boston Blackie and his friend Mary dine at a restaurant where the owner mistakenly insists Blackie is a wealthy patron named Mr.
Inspector Faraday warns Blackie's friend to keep Blackie away from a case involving a jailed friend accused of a gas station robbery.
Boston Blackie and his friend Mary watch Inspector Faraday on a television broadcast of a Civic Forum, commenting on the novelty of television.
Captain Harlan faces a mutiny led by his first mate Mr.
Inspector Faraday leads a team to arrest the sleeping criminals Murdock and Dawson in their bed at 3 a.m.
A young woman is kidnapped for ransom, prompting detective Boston Blackie to investigate the case while balancing social obligations.
Inspector Faraday announces he has recovered stolen diamonds and arrested Boston Blackie for the theft, claiming to have finally outsmarted him.
Boston Blackie investigates why 100 boys suddenly stopped attending his free youth gym program at the 10th Street Gym, uncovering a potential connection to a stolen car ring.