Steve Grainger was a typical hard-boiled detective, whose cases involved crimes from murder, to robbery, to smuggling. The series came much later in the golden age of radio, and sadly seemed to have 'missed the boat' in the hard-boiled detective genre, as it never saw the success of its predecessors such as Pat Novak For Hire, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, Adventures of Philip Marlowe, and my personal favorite, Dragnet. 

The series premièred on the Mutual Network on July 23 1956, and then aired each Monday evening at 8:30pm, until the final broadcast, which was on February 25 1957.

Each show was a half hour of Steve Grainger operating his private detective practice from New York City, solving crime cases alongside the police, FBI and other law enforcement agencies. It featured a small cast of characters, with him relying quite heavily on his pal Cal Hendricks, a news journalist who breaks the news stories, and police detective Jake Rankin, who Steve has a rather close-fisted relationship with.

The shows are loaded with some great tough-guy talk, and witty analogies, such as these:-

• "He was as slippery as an eel dipped in olive oil"
• "She vanished quicker than snowflakes in a heatwave"
• "He was holed up as securely as a gopher in sub zero weather"
• "Business was slower than a fifth avenue bus in a blizzard"