Get this and get it straight. Crime is a suckers road and those who travel it wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave.

The story you are about to hear is true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

The Adventures of Sam Spade Detective.

The Adventures of the Saints starring Vincent Prize

Bob Bailey in the exciting adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account

America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator.

Yours truly, Johnny Deller. And the Hello and

welcome to a Friday bonus episode of Down These Mean Streets and the first in what I hope will be a new series a deep dive of my

five favorite episodes from a classic old time radio detective show.

For this first installment, I'm sharing my personal picks

for the best radio adventures of the saint,

the Robin Hood of Modern Crime created by Leslie Chartress. The saint,

better known as Simon Templar, has been played by the likes of George Sanders,

Roger Moore and Val Kilmer on the big and small screens, and he was

memorably played on radio for many years by Vincent Price.

Vincent Price's run as the saint is one of my favorite radio detective shows, and a big reason for that is

Price himself.

In these shows he's an incredibly smooth radio performer who can play the drama and the comedy in a script and sometimes in the same scene with ease.

Today, Price's name is synonymous with horror films, but even in those classics from Roger

Corman and others, he always managed to find a smile or two in the middle of all the scares.

Then there's his backup.

Simon Templar is joined by the best sidekick a sleuth ever had,

...