Volume 1 of Richard Diamond, Private Detective! Combining Dick Powell’s tough-guy image with his impressive way with a song, “Richard Diamond, Private Detective” featured a hard-boiled gumshoe who rarely took himself too seriously; he was, simply, an ex-cop who had decided to hang out his own shingle in the investigation business. He demonstrated a breezy insouciance to authority, generally concluded each case with a song sung to his sweetheart, and indulged himself with in-jokes - many referencing other radio detectives. The series ran from 1949-1952 and later made its way to television, but radio fans know that their fix of Mr. Diamond can only be satisfied by tuning in the one-and-only Dick Powell...and there’s no better way to start than with these twenty fully restored broadcasts, courtesy of Radio Archives.
