"Secrets of Scotland Yard"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 462, 30 April 1948, Page 15

"Secrets of Scotland Yard"

ITH the British radio, screen and stage actor Clive Brook acting as narrator, listeners to the four ZB stations and 2ZA will be introduced next week to a new session Secrets of Scotland Yard. This serial, in 52 halfhour episodes, will start on Friday, May 7, at 9.0 p.m., and be heard thereafter on Friday evenirgs at the same time. Secrets of Scotland Yard will differ from the BBC feature, Scotland Yard at Work, described recently in The Listener and now being heard from 2YH, The ZB show emphasises that "crime does not pay," and includes dramatizations of actual crimes, whereas the BBC documentary feature lays stress on the purely scientific angle of crime detection. . Percy Hoskins*seen above), who had a hand in writing the BBC serial, and who is the author of Secrets of Scotland

Yard, is at present official historian of "the Yard." He has had many years’ experience as a crime reporter for one of London’s largest daily newspapers. As he pointed out there is nothing occult about the work of Scotland Yard, although some of its achievements often appear to be like black magic until one sees their simplicity. Many people seem to believe that the detection of crime is some kind of romantic gift much closer to fiction than to fact. The truth is, of course, that crime detection is a business and detectives its professional employees. The average Yard man gets little chance to display the analytical powers of Holmes or the subtl, inspired methods of Ellery Queen, for in 90 per cent. of murder investigations it is the system-the crime-fighting machine called the C.I.D.-and not the individual officer that is responsible for the solution.