RUSC MAILING

Written by Ned Norris

Among the many detectives who kept listeners leaning toward the loudspeaker during radio’s golden age, few enjoyed quite the remarkable run of Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons.

The series first came to the air on October 12th, 1937, and remained a regular fixture until the mid-1950s, making it one of the longest-running detective dramas in American radio history. Created by the famous husband-and-wife production team Frank and Anne Hummert, the show had that wonderfully dependable quality listeners loved — mystery, sentiment, suspense, and a familiar voice you could settle in with week after week.

At the center of it all was Mr. Keen himself, most famously played by Bennett Kilpack. He was not a hard-boiled private eye like Sam Spade, nor a flashy amateur sleuth. Keen was calm, courteous, patient, and persistent — the sort of detective who asked his questions politely, but kept asking until the truth had nowhere left to hide.

In the beginning, the title was quite literal: Mr. Keen traced lost persons and helped reunite them with worried families and friends. As the years went on, the stories increasingly moved into murder mystery territory, with disappearances leading to blackmail, jealousy, inheritance plots, betrayal, and all the classic ingredients of old time radio crime drama.

What I’ve always found appealing about Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons is that it has a very human touch. The mystery often begins not with violence, but with worry — someone searching for a daughter, a husband, a business partner, or an old friend. The case matters because the people matter.

There are currently over twenty episodes of Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons available on RUSC, with another thirty still to come, so it’s a splendid time to follow this long-running favorite.

So settle back, let the modern world fade for a while, and join Mr. Keen as he follows the trail of the missing, the mysterious, and the murderous. In his calm and capable hands, even the darkest case has a way of finding its answer.

Happy listening,

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