The Private eyes and police officers didn't have a monopoly in the world of

radio crime solving. Their counterparts on the legal side of the justice system

also enjoyed some airtime and one of those radio attorneys

was Chicago native John J Malone known as the amazing Mr Malone he worked as

much outside of the courtroom as a detective as he did inside the courtroom for his clients.

Malone first appeared in the novels of Mystery Writer Craig Rice, a pseudonym for Georgiana Anne Randolph Craig.

She was raised by her paternal aunt and uncle, where she acquired the surname of her pseudonym

Rice, and she credited her uncle, Elton Rice as sparking

her interest in mysteries at a young age. Her work blended elements of hard-boiled

crime fiction with screwball comedy and her sense of humor

and biting wit led some to call her the Dorothy Parker of Detective Fiction.

Elsewhere Rice wrote scripts for the Falcon film series and she even ghost wrote a book for Falcon star George Sanders.

In 1946, Craig Rice became the first mystery writer to appear on the cover of Time magazine.

Many of her detective novels featured John J Malone, a rumpled and rye criminal defense attorney.

Though Malone appeared to be bumbling, he had a dramatic flare in the courtroom, and he always

managed to come out on top.

In some respects Malone is similar to the TV character, Lieutenant Colombo.

These more colorful aspects of Malone tended to disappear in adaptations of Rice's stories. On the big screen, in movies like The Lucky Stiff, Malone was portrayed as more of a straightforward tough guy hero.

Malone first came to radio in Murder and Mr Malone, a 1947 series starring Frank Lovejoy, who was just a few years

away from the role of Randy Stone on Nightbeat. In 1948, the show was

retitled The Amazing Mr Malone, and it aired for another hundred episodes on ABC before it left the air in 1950.

Jean Raymond succeeded Lovejoy in the title role.

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