Pat Novak, for Hire is a detective drama radio series set on the San Francisco waterfront. The show portrays the city as a dark, rough place where survival is key. The title character, Pat Novak, is not a detective by trade, but he owns a boat shop on Pier 19 where he rents out boats and does odd jobs to make money. The series is known for its fast-paced, hard-boiled dialogue and action, as well as its witty one-liners. Each episode follows a similar formula, featuring Novak taking on unusual or risky jobs, often finding himself mixed up in murder mysteries with sultry female characters and a cat-and-mouse game with Police Inspector Hellman, played by Raymond Burr.

The show originally aired from 1946 to 1948 on KGO in San Francisco as a West Coast regional program, with Jack Webb starring as Pat Novak and Richard L. Breen writing scripts. After moving from San Francisco to Los Angeles, Webb and Breen created a similar nationwide series called Johnny Madero, Pier 23 on the Mutual network. In 1949, Webb and Breen resumed their roles for Pat Novak, for Hire on the national ABC network. The show aired until June 26, 1949, and at least 25 episodes are known to exist. The show’s success helped launch Jack Webb’s career, as he went on to create and star in another iconic crime drama, Dragnet. Other notable actors featured on Pat Novak, for Hire included Ben Morris, George Fenneman, Hal Gibney, and William Conrad.

Sources: archive.org, wikipedia.org, otrcat.com