Joe Candono - Blackmail Pictures: Pat Novak, for Hire (March 27, 1949)

“Joe Candono - Blackmail Pictures” is an episode of Pat Novak, for Hire, the old-time radio show, first broadcast March 27, 1949. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Pat Novak agrees to help a beautiful woman named Doreen Wild retrieve blackmail pictures of her brother from gambler Joe Condano by paying off a ten-thousand-dollar gambling debt. When Novak discovers Doreen's brother Frank dead in a hotel room and becomes the prime suspect, he must unravel a complex web of betrayal involving the Wild family, Condano, and his associates to clear his name.

San Francisco waterfront and various locations including the Dixie Hotel, Condano's gambling establishment, and the Wild family apartment

Characters: Pat Novak, Doreen Wild, Frank Wild, Joe Condano, Inspector Hellman, Jack O'Mattson, Harry Wilde, Eddie Darrow

Listen for: The clever plot twists involving mistaken identity, blackmail pictures, multiple double crosses, and the revelation of who actually committed the murder; pay attention to the timeline of events and who was where at seven o'clock

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.