Mr Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons

Now here's a series I haven't listened to in a while. You see I added the few episodes of this series that we had back in 2001 when Joy and I first began RUSC and haven't listened to it since then until now when friend of RUSC Paul Manning kindly sent us this four part story to share with you through RUSC.

Mr Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons was one of the longest running detective serials on radio beginning it's 15-minute weekday episodes in October 1937 and continued for seventeen years.

Although the main part was played by Phil Clarke and Arthur Hughes the actor best known for the role is English born actor Bennett Kilpack whose mature, firm, gentle and patient voice was perfect for the role of the kindly old investigator. 

From July 1943 the show changed its format to 30-minute dramatizations and some of these episodes can be heard on RUSC. In 1954 the show reverted back to 15-minute weekday episodes and it is the four-part story entitled Shrieking Prisoner Murder originally broadcast in June 1954 that we will be adding to RUSC throughout the week. In it Mr Keen the famous investigator and his partner Mike Clancy are investigating the strange murder of Donald Travers who was shot to death as he entered a lonely house owned by his wife’s two eccentric aunts Martha and Amy Carson. Amy Carson is insane and although both sisters are suspects in the case Mr Keen has his eye on two other suspects Luther Craig a handyman who robbed the victim and George Wheeler who at one time had wanted to marry Amy Carson.

So popular was the series that it led Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding to satirize it on the Bob & Ray Show as Mr Trace, Keener than Most Persons. For your entertainment I will add this show to RUSC on Friday so you can listen to Bob and Ray as the surly old investigator and his assistant Spike Delancy who together try to solve The Case of the Broken Violin String.

Happy listening my friends,