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APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH

·41 min·2 clips

Ann Rogers's column predicts Charles Gilmore will be dead by ten o'clock.

1. Hot Copy Radio Theater recreates the lost radio drama episode "Appointment with Death." 2. Ann Rogers is the newspaper reporter behind the syndicated column Second Glance, while Sprightly assists her with typing and investigation. 3. The episode asks why someone inserted a death prediction into Ann Rogers's column and used it to control Charles H. Gilmore's movements. 4. Ann's column states that Gilmore will be dead by ten o'clock if he attends an investigation of mob-controlled gambling. 5. Gilmore is found shot at his house at ten o'clock by Lieutenant Mike Flanagan. 6. The linotype operator says a previously unknown black-haired, dark-eyed man delivered the added paragraph late at night. 7. Gilmore's nephew Henry Carver and private detective Joe Swenson were inside the house with butler Winslow when the shooting occurred. 8. Flanagan learns that Gilmore locked himself in his study while Swenson, Winslow, and Carver guarded three separate doors. 9. Ann argues that police surrounding the house should have trapped the killer inside, prompting Swenson to draw a gun. 10. A basement attack leaves Swenson unconscious after he encounters a black shape and fires during a struggle. 11. A blood spot and a sharp object found near Swenson lead Winslow to describe something like ground glass. 12. Ann remembers the Appointment in Samara legend, in which a man flees an Angel of Death only to meet him in Samara. 13. Ann reasons that Gilmore was deliberately frightened into staying home so he would keep his appointment with death. 14. Swenson admits that his income is tied to the city's gambling racket and that Gilmore's investigation threatened him. 15. Swenson used Ann's column to make Gilmore summon the private detective as protection at the murder scene. 16. A painted contact lens and black hair dye explain how Swenson matched the linotype operator's description. 17. The production uses a scripted ensemble performance with period radio narration, sound effects, interruptions, and a sponsor break. 18. Mike Flanagan's investigation balances procedural questioning with comic exchanges involving Sprightly, Winslow, and the suspects. 19. Hot Copy fans and 1940s radio-mystery listeners. 20. Listeners avoiding staged murders, gun threats, and period slang.

As heard by us

Ann Rogers follows a murder prediction into a guarded house where the killer may still be waiting.

Appointment with Death gives Ann Rogers a clean, unsettling hook: her newspaper column predicts that Charles Gilmore will be killed, and the prediction proves right. When Ann reaches the scene, her attention goes straight to the practical problem everyone else is circling.

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Why you'd press play

You get a newspaper mystery, a house that may still be holding its killer, and a gun suddenly pointed across the room.

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