I'm a big fan of the old
Pat Novak For Hire radio show. The writer, Dick Breen, really had a way with words! The language has been dubbed 'Chandleresque,' but from what I've seen, he's much funnier than Chandler. I wish manuscripts of that show were available in ebook form.
Here's a few Novakisms:
"Somebody had used to her badly, like a dictionary in a stupid family."
"Stop posing. You couldn't follow an elephant across a basketball court."
"It was like washing your kid's face and finding out he was ugly to begin with."
"And you're going to tell me he's dead, Hellman?"
"No, I'm not going to tell he's dead, Novak. He might be a soft breather."
"You couldn't find a tractor on the back porch."
"She was at least 50, because you can't get that ugly without years of practice."
"The street was deserted except for a couple of winos, near the corner, trying to buy back 1926 at a dollar a jug."
"You start with trouble, and it never stops. It's like offering to buy aspirin for a two-headed boy."
"I woke up with a head the size of Rhode Island. I rolled over and tried to get up, but I was about as strong as a moth in a wind tunnel. The room was dark and I couldn't see very well. There was a stale, musty odor, could have been a marathon dancer's dressing room, with a little fixing up, the sort of place you wouldn't be found dead in. There was a guy lying next to me who didn't feel that way about it. One look at the guy and I could see he was dead from the crew cut down. Somebody had wrapped a towel around his throat and forgot to say 'when'."
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The
good news? I just discovered there's at least one
Boston Blackie ebook available, and I'm going over to Amazon now to download it. Boston Blackie was another of the great radio detective shows (although some incarnations of that show were far superior to others)!