Noir Factory Podcast
51 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 6 years ago - ★★★★★ - 173 ratingsThe Noir Factory Podcast is created for the mystery reader, noir movie goes, or true crime buff who wants a closer look into the genre. Mystery writer Steven Gomez looks at crime history, pulp stories, noir films, and the men and woman who made them. Each week we will examine an event or figure in crime history, a pulp or noir writer, or a piece of detective work, both fictional and in real life.
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Episodes
Noir Factory Case #37: Huey Long- The King Fish
April 27, 2018 05:33 - 33 minutes - 46.5 MBThe Noir Factory Podcast Case #37 Huey Long-The King Fish “One of these days the people of Louisiana are going to get good government. And they aren’t going to like it.” -Huey Long Huey Pierce Long Jr. was born to Huey Pierce Long Senior and Caledonia Tison Long on August 30th, 1893 in Winnfield, Louisiana. Winnfield was a dirt-poor parish and the wealthy Long family stood out. They were the wealth and class of Winn Parish and lead the community for generations. Huey’s gr...
Noir Factory Episode C#36: Leopold and Loeb CORRECTED
February 11, 2018 09:54 - 25 minutes - 35 MBNoir Factory Podcast Episode #36 Leopold and Loeb ***CORRECTED BACKGROUND AUDIO*** My deepest apologies! The previous version of this episode was released “in progress” and by mistake . Please enjoy this updated version and again, my sincerest apologies! -Steve Gomez ------ “To be an effective criminal defense counsel, an attorney must be prepared to be demanding, outrageous, irreverent, blasphemous, a rogue, a renegade, and a hated, isolated, and lonely person - few love a spo...
BEST OF 2017:George Remus
January 05, 2018 21:32 - 1 minute - 2.27 MBNoir Factory BEST OF 2017 There’s a tradition in the podcasting world that during the first week of a new year you look back at the episodes you’ve put out in the world. I know, if it’s a podcasting tradition how old can it be, right? Still, just like drinking too much on New Year’s Eve and stepping on the scale after the holidays, we look at one episode that seemed to resonate with our listeners more than any other. Perhaps it’s because the subject of the episode is a self-mad...
Hero Obscura Episode 48-Santa Claus
December 25, 2017 10:11 - 7 minutes - 10.4 MBHero Obscura Episode #48 Santa Clause Today’s hero isn’t obscure. Not in the least. In fact, he’s known by all. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist. And how dreary a world it would be if he didn’t. Old Saint Nick. Father Christmas. Kris Kringle. Santa Clause. Today on Hero Obscura. ----------------- If you haven’t done so already, please review us on Apple Podcasts! Reviews are an important way to help listeners discover the show. www.itunes.com ...
Noir Factory Interrogation #4-Dmitri Matheny
December 21, 2017 00:48 - 32 minutes - 44.8 MBNoir Factory Interrogation #4 Dmitri Matheny- Noir Jazz ------------------------------------ Crime Jazz: “The Femme Fatal. The cop on the beat. The hard-boiled detective. The saxophone under the street lamp in the fog. It’s the music of “Chinatown” and “Taxi Driver.” -Dmitri Matheny Find Dmitri’s work at www.dmitrimatheny.com If you haven’t done so already, please review us on iTunes! It is an important way to help new listeners to discover the show. https://tinyurl.com/y7p...
NF Case #35: Sexton Blake-Pulp Detective
December 02, 2017 02:06 - 20 minutes - 27.6 MBNoir Factory Podcast Case #35 Sexton Blake-Pulp Detective “If there is a wrong to be righted, an evil to be redressed, or a rescue of the weak and suffering from the powerful, our hearty assistance can be readily obtained. We do nothing for hire here; we would cheerfully undertake to perform without a fee or a reward. But when your clients are wealthy, we are not so unjust to ourselves as to make a gratuitous offer of our services.” -Sexton Blake As the 19th century came to a close...
A short interruption for the Noir Factory
September 21, 2017 18:23 - 1 minute - 2.33 MBWe will be back the week of October 16th.
Interrogation #3: Will Viharo-Gonzo Pulp Writer
August 10, 2017 21:00 - 29 minutes - 40.6 MBNoir Factory Podcast Interrogation #3 Will Viharo: Gonzo Pulp Writer Will Viharo is the author of the Vic Valentine series as well as the host of Seattle's Noir at the Bar, a seasonal showcase that combines author readings with alcohol, the way God intneded it. He is a writer that defies classification, with his work mixing humor, surrealism, gore, violence, and sex. His newest work, Vic Valentine, International Man of Misery, is due out this fall and in this interrogation I get a ch...
Case #34: Joseph Weil-The Yellow Kid
July 27, 2017 21:00 - 19 minutes - 27.3 MBNoir Factory Podcast Case #34 Joseph Weil: The Yellow Kid “Who's going to believe a con artist? Everyone if she's good.” -Andy Griffith Joseph Weil was born in Chicago in 1875 to Mr. and Mrs. Otto Weil. The couple owned a small neighborhood grocery store and made a decent income. Their boy, Joseph, helped out after school by sweeping up and stocking shelves. And then he discovered racehorses.
Case #33: The Black Sox-Baseball's Most Notorious Scandal
July 14, 2017 04:45 - 23 minutes - 32.6 MBCase #33: The Black Sox I'm forever blowing ballgames, pretty ballgames in the air. I come from Chi, I hardly try, just go to bat and fade and die. Fortune's coming my way, that's why I don't care. I'm forever blowing ballgames, and the gamblers treat us fair. -Ring Lardner You could say that it started with Charlie Comiskey, because a lot of things started with Charlie Comiskey in Chicago in 1919. Comiskey owned the Chicago White Sox, a serious contender ...
Case #32 : Alan Ladd and Box 13
June 30, 2017 05:33 - 20 minutes - 28.1 MBNoir Factory Case #32 Alan Ladd and Box 13 “I'm the most insecure guy in Hollywood. If you had it good all your life, you figure it can't ever be bad, but when you've had it bad, you wonder how long a thing like this will last.” -Alan Ladd Alan Walbridge Ladd was born on September 3rd, 1913 in Hot Springs, Arkansas and was the only child of Ina Raleigh and Alan Ladd. Like most of the characters Ladd went onto play, his upbringing was rough and growing up was a constant struggle. ...
Hero Obscura Podcast Preview #3
June 29, 2017 03:08 - 6 minutes - 8.25 MBNFL SuperPro For a hero to fail, a lot of things has to happen. It has to be poorly thought out, ill conceived, and have little in terms of redeeming quality. Oh, and it should be created with ulterior motives. Sounds pretty harsh? Then you just haven't met NFL SuperPro.
Hero Obscura Podcast Preview #2
June 28, 2017 02:40 - 5 minutes - 8.03 MBSpace Cabbie! Everyone has a hero. For cop's it's probably the Dark Knight and for soldiers I can imagine Captain America, depending on the army your in. But what about the ordinary guys? What about the accountants and pastry chefs or the mail carriers and DMV workers? Fishermen, okay...we'll give you Aquaman. But for the Lyft and Uber drivers out there, today's episode is for you! I give you Space Cabbie!
Hero Obscura Podcast Preview #1
June 27, 2017 02:50 - 7 minutes - 9.85 MBThe Blue Diamond Some heroes are with us for ages and other are gone in the blink of an eye. If you are in the business of being a hero, particularly a super one, you never know how long you'll have. You just have to make sure that you use our time wisely. That and you should punch a lot of Nazis.
Case #31: The Batman
June 17, 2017 04:25 - 21 minutes - 30.9 MB“He's clearly a man with a mission, but it's not one of vengeance. Bruce is not after personal revenge ... He's much bigger than that; he's much more noble than that. He wants the world to be a better place, where a young Bruce Wayne would not be a victim ... In a way, he's out to make himself unnecessary. Batman is a hero who wishes he didn't have to exist.” -Frank Miller In 1939 detectives and vigilantes rules the popular literary landscape. They were hard men who handed out justic...
Case#30: Billie Holiday- Jazz Legend
May 31, 2017 08:33 - 23 minutes - 32.8 MB“Behind me, Billie was on her last song. I picked up the refrain, humming a few bars. Her voice sounded different to me now. Beneath the layers of hurt, beneath the ragged laughter, I heard a willingness to endure. Endure- and make music that wasn't there before.” -Barack Obama The woman who would be Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia on April 7th, 1915. In her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues, written with William Duffy, Billie said that her parents were “j...
Case #29: George Remus-King of the Bootleggers
May 15, 2017 06:28 - 21 minutes - 29.5 MB"He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That's one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn't far wrong." -F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby George Remus was born on November 13th 1876 in Germany to Frank and Maria Remus, a working class family. He was the middle child with an older sister and younger brother and while he was still just a toddler,...
Noir Factory Interrogation #002
April 28, 2017 00:00 - 46 minutes - 63.9 MBEddie Muller is the founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation. According to their website, the Film Noir Foundation is a non-profit public benefit corporation created as an educational resource regarding the cultural, historical, and artistic significance of film noir as an original American cinematic movement. Eddie is also the host of Noir City, the coolest non-profit fundraiser known to man. Noir City is a traveling film festival and chief fundraising event for the Film Noir Fou...
Case #28: Charles Ponzi- Conman
April 17, 2017 07:02 - 23 minutes - 32.6 MB“Even if they never got anything for it, it was cheap at that price. Without malice aforethought I had given them the best show that was ever staged in their territory since the landing of the Pilgrims! It was easily worth fifteen million bucks to watch me put the thing over." -Charles Ponzi Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tobaldo Ponzi was born in Lugo, Italy in 1882 and did the world a favor, one of very few, by changing his name to Charles Ponzi. He came from a family that was at on...
Case #27: "Durable" Mike Malloy
March 30, 2017 01:20 - 20 minutes - 27.6 MBNoir Factory Podcast Episode #27 In 1996 a board game called KILL DR. LUCKY came out. It was a wildly fun game where each person takes turns trying to, well...kill Dr. Lucky. Don't judge me. It was a simpler time. The game required each player to take a turn at doing in the Rasputin-like physician, which was sooo much more difficult than it sounded. It took luck and daring to get the good doctor away from all other players and do him in, and more often than not, he escape...
Case #1.5 Kate Warne- America's First Female Detective REVISITED
March 09, 2017 05:48 - 18 minutes - 25.4 MBCase#01.5: Kate Warne-America's First Female Detective REVISITED Hi Steve Gomez here. A lot has happened behind the scenes at the Noir Factory during the last month or so. Our offices in the Sierra Foothills have moved lock, stock, and barrel up to the Pacific Northwest. Way up to the icy clutches of the Pacific Northwest. Past Seattle and into kissing cousin territory with Canada. That kind of Pacific Northwest. Now those were the offices we know and love. My home. Our everyday of...
Noir Factory Interrogation #001
January 25, 2017 23:40 - 33 minutes - 46.2 MBNoir Factory Interrogation #1 Dan Slater-Author Dan Slater’s novel Wolf Boys had been banned from prison by the Texas State Department of Corrections. That is a shame because there is much there for the inmates, as well the public, to learn. Dan Slater is a former legal reporter for The Wall Street Journal and has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, GQ, and Fast Company. He is also the author of Love in the Time of Algo...
Case #026: "Count" Victor Lustig- Con Man
January 14, 2017 09:01 - 24 minutes - 34.3 MBNoir Factory Podcast Case #026: Victor Lustig-Con Man Extraordinaire “I’ve always loved movies about con men. I think con men are as American as apple pie.” -Bill Paxton, actor Victor Lustig was born on January 4th, 1890. Maybe. He said, more than once, that he came from the Austria-Hungarian town of Hostinné, in what is now the Czech Republic. He said once that he was the son of the town’s burgomaster. He also said that he was the son of the poorest couple in the village. Believe w...
Case #25-Humphrey Bogart
December 30, 2016 07:48 - 33 minutes - 46.2 MB“Whether in a white dinner jacket or in a trench coat and a snap-brim fedora, he became a new and timely symbol of the post-Pearl Harbor American: tough but compassionate, skeptical yet idealistic, betrayed yet ready to believe again, and above all, a potentially deadly opponent.” -Ann M. Sperber, author A lot of what we do here at the Noir Factory revolves around noir films, crime history, and pulp stories. And like it or not, whenever the subject of noir comes up, it has only one face...
Case #24- The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew
November 28, 2016 08:25 - 26 minutes - 37 MB“...My husband pointed out that kids frequently have an instinctive desire to follow the good example rather than the bad, once they find out which is which. We agreed that a good moral background and thorough grounding in the Hardy Boys would always tell in the long run.” -Shirley Jackson, author They are still in print today and they are still popular, even though they aren’t really like the stories you remember. Today there are smart phones and text clues, hackers and virtual reality,...
Case #23: The Real Inspiration for Professor Moriarty
November 03, 2016 03:46 - 24 minutes - 33.5 MBNOIR FACTORY PODCAST CASE #23- The Real Life Inspiration for Professor Moriarty. “He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city, He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them. He does little himsel...
CASE #22-The Inspiration Behind Sherlock Holmes
October 12, 2016 05:42 - 24 minutes - 34 MBNOIR FACTORY PODCAST CASE #22-The Inspiration Behind Sherlock Holmes “Science gave us forensics. Law gave us crime.” -Mokokoma Mokhonoana, author Arthur Conan Doyle published his first Sherlock Holmes story in 1887 to mild reception. The story, A Study in Scarlet, introduced the Holmes character to the world. An eccentric investigator with an encyclopedic mind, razor-sharp instincts, and a lightning-fast wit, Holmes is the prototype detective, the model against whi...
Case #021: The Shadow-Pulp Hero
September 25, 2016 09:43 - 21 minutes - 30 MBNOIR FACTORY PODCAST CASE #21: The Shadow- Pulp Hero “The world of Doc Savage and The Shadow was one of absolute values, where what was good was never in the slightest doubt and where what was evil inevitably suffered some fitting punishment.” -Alan Moore, writer The Shadow first cast his presence over the airwaves on July 31st of 1930. It was on CBS's The Detective Story Magazine Hour where a mysterious narrator introduced a dramatic story that appeared in the latest issue ...
Case #20: Ida Lupino- Hollywood Legend
September 08, 2016 08:47 - 25 minutes - 35.1 MB"My agent told me that he was going to make me the Janet Gaynor of England-I was going to play all the sweet roles. Whereupon, at the tender age of thirteen, I set upon the path of playing nothing but hookers.” -Ida Lupino There are certain family names in Hollywood make you sit up and take notice. Today those names are the Fonda and the Bridges, Coppola and Sheen. It wasn't any different in the early days of Tinseltown. The names were different, but royalty was still royalty. Back t...
Case #19: The Kray Twins
August 25, 2016 04:30 - 22 minutes - 31.5 MBNOIR FACTORY PODCAST CASE #19: The Kray Twins “They were the best years of our lives. They called them the swinging sixties. The Beatles were rulers of pop music, Carnaby Street ruled the fashion world...and me and my brother ruled London. We were fucking untouchable.” -Ronnie Kray, from his autobiography The East End of London during the sixties was a mixture of poor and artistic, of modern and bohemian, of classic and diversity that England had never seen before or since. I...
Case #18: The Cotton Club
August 11, 2016 06:48 - 25 minutes - 35.4 MBNOIR FACTORY PODCAST CASE #18: The Cotton Club-Nightclub “It was infamously racially exclusive. W.C. Handy wished to go one evening to the Cotton Club and he was turned away. And he could hear his music being performed!" -Levering Lewis, historian It was the greatest nightclub of its day and there's a convincing argument to be made that it was the greatest nightclub that ever was. Opening its doors during the Harlem Renaissance, The Cotton Club was part Speakeasy, part dance-hall...
NF Case #17: Raymond Chandler-Writer
July 28, 2016 04:00 - 24 minutes - 33.8 MBNOIR FACTORY PODCAST CASE #17: Raymond Chandler-Writer “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. “He will ...
Case #16: The Strand and the Black Mask-Pulp Legends
July 07, 2016 04:00 - 16 minutes - 7.35 MB“A pulp story without a detective and, obviously, somebody for him to do battle with is unthinkable, and I can't remember reading a pulp story that didn't have a dame - either a good girl or a bad girl.” -Otto Penzler The 1890’s in Europe was, for all intents and purposes, a golden age for serialized stories in print. In England Charles Dickens became the first rock star the world had ever seen, and in France, serialized versions of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cri...
Noir Factory Case #15: Willie Sutton-Bank Robber
June 29, 2016 22:08 - 21 minutes - 9.68 MB“It is a rather pleasant experience to be alone in a bank at night.” –Willie Sutton-Bank Robber William Francis “Willie” Sutton Jr. was born on June 30th, 1901 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, a poor tenement neighborhood known at the time as Irishtown. He was the son of a blacksmith and the fourth of five children. His mother was a devout Irish Catholic who suffered from depression, which was said to be caused by the early death of a daughter. His father, William Sr., traveled for work and was ab...
Case #014-Eliot Ness-Untouchable
May 29, 2016 08:39 - 31 minutes - 14.6 MBEven as a boy Eliot Paul Ness seemed destined for excellence and if you asked his fellow students, probably seemed most likely to be a crime fighter. He was the youngest of six siblings born to Peter and Emma Ness, a Norwegian immigrant couple that operated a small bakery in Chicago. Eliot Ness was a bookish young man and a good student, with a reputation for a neat appearance as well as being a loner. As a kid he grew up with a healthy appetite for Sherlock Holmes mysteries and as a son...
Case #013: Bugsy Siegel-American Gangster
April 28, 2016 07:16 - 27 minutes - 12.7 MBBenjamin “Bugsy” Siegel was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to a family of poor Jewish immigrants, who came from Eastern Europe. His parents, Max and Jennie, worked whatever jobs they could find to provide for their five children, and their neighborhood constantly invented new definitions for the word “Poor.” As a child, the second of five, Benjamin saw that struggle as well as what his parents struggled against, and he vowed that he would rise above a life of poverty. He dropped out...
Case#012:Mata Hari-Spy
April 10, 2016 07:34 - 27 minutes - 12.7 MBThe name evokes visions of a dancer, slithering through a smoke-filled parlor, wisps of cloth snaking over her as she moves. Her eyes are like polished opals in the moonlight, dark, mysterious, and you can’t bring yourself to look away. You dare not look away. Okay it probably didn’t play out exactly that way, but I imagine that is how she would have enjoyed being remembered, so let’s go with that. There are many questions that still linger about her. The easiest is “was she gu...
Case #011:Dick Tracy-Crimestopper
March 18, 2016 08:31 - 26 minutes - 12.3 MBHe was born in Pawnee, Oklahoma in 1900, seven years before the territory became a state. His grandparents, all four of them, were pioneers of the territory. His father, Gilbert was a minister and a printer. In fact Gilbert Gould was everything a small town in a harsh territory needed him to be, but mostly he was a man who believed in good storytelling. He was also the editor of the local newspaper, and he loved his politics. Little Chester Gould was born in the last year of the nin...
Case #010:Bonnie and Clyde-American Outlaws
February 25, 2016 09:42 - 30 minutes - 13.9 MBLetter to Henry Ford on April 10, 1934…. Dear Sir, While I still have breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car make. I have driven Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got ever other car skinned and even if my business hasn’t been strictly legal it don’t hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8- Yours truly, Clyde Champion Barrow
Case #009: Dame Agatha Christie
February 10, 2016 23:01 - 23 minutes - 10.7 MBAgatha Christie was the bestselling author of all time, and living in the days of Stephen King and J.K. Rowling, that means something. In literature, it goes the bible, Shakespeare, and Christie. In short, she is what legends in mystery writing aspire to be. But it wasn’t always like that for her. When you look at Agatha Christie’s story, is helps to know something about her mother, Clara Boehmer. Clara was the only daughter of a military man and an Englishwoman. She older brot...
Case #008: Alcatraz Island
January 20, 2016 22:49 - 29 minutes - 23.4 MBSitting about a mile and a half off San Francisco in the middle of a bitter, inhospitable California bay, Alcatraz Island is a lot like many other pieces of bay area real estate. Many have claimed ownership and many court battles were waged over ownership. But unlike other prime pieces of San Francisco real estate, few have wanted to call it home. The Island, Alcatraz Island, is also known as “The Rock.” And those who did call it home didn’t care for the experience. The island, one ...
Case #007: The Christmas Bank Heist
December 23, 2015 09:20 - 10 minutes - 5 MBThe Great Santa Claus Bank Robbery-An APB on Old Saint Nick! As a crispness fills the air and the scent of gingerbread begins to waft from the kitchen, one only has to pull on an ugly sweater and curl up with a tablet to find some old-fashioned, weird Christmas crime. And as always, Texas is as good a place to start as any. In 1929 banks in Texas fell victim to robbers almost daily, and it was with an eye to protect what was theirs that the Texas Bankers Association offered a reward of $5...
Noir Factory Christmas Special Part 2
December 21, 2015 09:40 - 21 minutes - 10 MBCHAPTER FOUR It took me a while to catch up with Mike McCarthy. He was the Special Investigator for the District Attorney, which meant that he played catcher to all the screwballs that came across the court system. If a crime was reported or investigated, he knew about it. The only variable was that not all of the crimes in the city were reported or investigated. If you knew the system under the system, you could get something buried so deep that it turned to crude oil.
Noir Factory Christmas Special Part 1
December 17, 2015 10:01 - 24 minutes - 11.3 MBChristmas time is special at the Noir Factory. The snow cleans up the chalk outlines on the sidewalk outside and the fellons wear a snappy smile as they lift your wallet. Today is part one of a holiday bonus for the Factory. It's a holiday caper designed to lift the spirits and take a break from real life. If it isn't your thing, and you are here for the usual biographical and historical crime and noir, then feel free to skip this. You won't hurt my feelings and next week we'll be back wit...
Case #006: The Subject of Fingerprints
December 10, 2015 00:35 - 22 minutes - 10.2 MBIt’s hard to tell where exactly the story begins because there was no huge discovery. At the tips of your fingers there are marks. Loops and swirls, whorls and arches. It was kind of like telling the world that you were the first to discover ...your belly button. It just didn’t go over well, but unlike your bellybutton, the patterns on the tips of fingers meant more than just a physical oddity. The patterns on your fingers tell a story. But yeah, I guess so does your belly button.
Case #005: John Dillinger-Public Enemy Number One
November 19, 2015 08:03 - 29 minutes - 13.4 MBIn the 30's, the FBI used the term “Public Enemy Number One” as a designation of infamy. Although that period in time became known as the “Public Enemy Era,” there were only three people actually held that designation. The first one wore the title like a crown. John Herbert Dillinger was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on June 22nd, 1903. His father, John Wilson Dillinger, owned a small grocery store. His mother, Mary Ellen, died from a stroke when he was three. His sister, Audr...
Case #004: A Brief History of the K9 Corp
November 04, 2015 09:43 - 18 minutes - 8.31 MBThe partnership between mankind and canine is one of the oldest and most successful relationships on Earth. Every since early man sat around a fire and tossed scraps of meat to a curious gray wolf, the relationship between the two was based on trust. Virtually all breeds of dogs stem from the gray wolf and they have been tied to mankind ever since. It isn't just by accident that the scientific name for the dog is Canis Lupus Familliaris . The canine has been man's constant companio...
Case# 003-Black Bart: Outlaw Poet
October 23, 2015 04:34 - 22 minutes - 10.2 MBLife changed quickly for the people of Norfolk County, England in the 1800’s. The large estates were falling. The families of privilege, who employed large households full of servants, often for life, grew more scarce by the day. John and Maria Bowles could see the writing on the walls, so to speak. Their way of life, their means of support, was going away, never to return. They had to make some big decisions. With a meager savings and nine children in tow, they made their way across the oc...
Case #002- Mickey Spillane: Writer
October 23, 2015 04:29 - 19 minutes - 9.09 MBHe was born on March 9, 1918 in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Elizabeth, NJ, in a neighborhood he called “grimy, industrial, and working class.” It was exactly the kind of neighborhood you would expect a tough-guy to grow up in. Mickey Spillane was christened Frank Morrison Spillane by his Protestant mom, Catherine Ann. Apparently his Catholic father, John Joseph wasn’t having any of that. Whether he didn’t care for the name “Morison” or simply forgot his son’s middle name we’ll never kn...
Case# 001-Kate Warne: America's First Female Detective
October 23, 2015 04:24 - 16 minutes - 7.56 MBFOR A BETTER VERSION OF THIS EPISODE, SEE CASE #01.5: Kate Warne- America's First Female Detective REVISITED When the door opened at the Pinkerton Detective Agency on August 23rd, 1856, Allan Pinkerton, the legendary chief of the most famous detective shop in history, had no idea what lay ahead of him. She was, as Allan later described her, “A commanding person, with clear cut, expressive features.” He said he wouldn’t call her handsome, but a “slender, brown-haired woman, graceful ...