Richard Diamond, Private Detective was an Old-time Radio show that aired from 1949–53 with Dick Powell playing the lead. Powell was a singer before turning to acting and his most famous film role was Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled, wise-cracking private detective in what's considered by many (myself included) as the best film-noir of all time – Farewell, My Lovely (aka Murder, My Sweet). And in my opinion he played Marlowe better than any other actor – yes, dare I say even eclipsing the great Bogart.

Richard Diamond was a more light-hearted detective than Marlowe but he still has some cracking noir-esque dialogue and a similar atmosphere. The shows are still very enjoyable and they often end with Dick Powell showing off his singing talent, and its theme, “Leave It to Love”, was whistled by Powell at the beginning of each episode.

Listen to an advert-free episode now:

Fifty Thousand Dollar Diamond Heist

All the original broadcast episodes come with adverts that interrupt the story at the start, in the middle and at the end. The adverts add up to between two and six minutes per episode, and soon become annoying after you've listened to a few of the shows. I've edited out these bothersome commercial breaks in the story from all 98 episodes in my possession and put them onto two CDs.

I've also equalised the volume on all episodes, tidied up the mp3 tags and added a jpeg, so they all look nice on your pc / mac / mp3 players, etc. The edited episodes are available to buy on CD for £6.95 inc p&p to the UK, £9.95 inc p&p to rest of the world.

The CDs come in a slim-line jewel case with an illustrated cover. Episodes are in mp3 format.