Nick Carter, Master Detective also known as The Return of Nick Carter

"Old Dutch Cleanser famous for chasing dirt presents... [organ rip] Nick Carter, famous for chasing crime..."

Nick Carter played for over ten years, and gave radio detectives fans another deductive hero to tail. The half-hour unfolds as a straight, dramatic narrative, with clues littering the scenes, so that a plausible solution was possible for the alert listener. Nick came on at the end of the show to add it all up correctly.

Lon Clark was Nick throughout the run, and did him as a pretty serious straight-ahead guy, like a hound on the trail.After all, he had his master's status to uphold. Helen Choate played Nick's assistant, Patsy Bowen until '46, then Charlotte Manson. Patsy was Nick's smart, witty sidekick who took no guff from Sgt. Masterson, played by Ed Latimer. Sgt. Masterson was the typical workman-like homicide cop (the type goes right back to Lestrade of Sherlock Holmes)who looked to Nick to shed a little light.

The detective team had a "legman" in Scubby Wilson, a reporter who tailed Nick and Patsy on the cases. John Kane did Scubby as the brash, ready-and-willing young man who was out to get the story, and knew Nick Carter would deliver the goods which he could then scoop.

That Nick was a Master Detective came from the fact that as a character he first appeared in the pulps, where the billing made a little more sense. On the old time radio show, fine organ work pumps ups the action, though the sound effects are minimal.

For more brainy detectives, see also: Softboiled Detectives. See also Chick Carter, Boy Detective in Rare Detectives and Crime Compilation.