The four-edition Suspense Magazine is a source of information about the series and its broadcasts. The magazine was a failed attempt to use the Suspense brand in other media. One of the causes, other than poor marketing, was that listeners wanted to hear Suspense and not read short story adaptations of the broadcasts. The covers pictured the Hollywood stars who had appeared on the show, but even that kind of magazine rack appeal could not attract readers or advertisers, nor could the assertion that the editor was Leslie Charteris (creator of The Saint).
There are occasional mistakes on the covers of the magazine that are interesting. The cover of the second issue had two errors, one identifying actor Lee J. Cobb as the lead in This Was a Hero. Philip Terry was the actual headliner.
It may have been an innocent editorial mistake, or, the staff may have been working with information from CBS that changed just prior to the final casting. Was Lee J. Cobb the original choice for the role? We may never know.
Cobb's sole appearance on Suspense was in 1945's The Bet, and Terry made this one appearance. Cobb was on the cover of the first issue for The Bet, thus making more appearances on Suspense magazine covers than he did as a performer!
It is not exactly clear how the scripts were selected and how they became short stories. The credits indicated that they were adapted from the scripts; it may have been possible that the editors and writers may have had access to recordings of the programs, but the way the credits are phrased they probably did not.
The contents of the fifth issue were teased in the fourth issue as including the script for Sorry, Wrong Number. The magazine never got that far. The other stories that were planned were Can’t We Be Friends, Beyond Good and Evil, The Westbound Cloud (adapted from Westbound Limited from the 1942 Summer season, a missing show), I Had an Alibi, My Dear Niece, and The Man Who Forgot (adapted from Heart's Desire).
List of all Suspense Magazine short stories listed by their original broadcast dates
- 1943-08-28 The King's Birthday (issue #2)
- 1943-09-09 Marry for Murder (issue #2)
- 1943-11-02 Statement of Employee Henry Wilson ('Fool Proof' from issue #3)
- 1943-11-16 Thieves Fall Out (issue #2)
- 1943-11-23 Strange Death of Charles Umberstein ('Strange Case of Mark Boren' from issue #4)
- 1944-01-06 One Way Ride to Nowhere ('Ride to Nowhere' from issue #2)
- 1944-01-20 A World of Darkness (issue #3)
- 1944-02-17 Life Ends at Midnight (issue #4)
- 1944-03-02 Portrait Without a Face (issue #1)
- 1944-03-09 The Defense Rests (issue #1)
- 1944-03-23 Sneak Preview (issue #2)
- 1944-04-20 The Palmer Method (issue #1)
- 1944-06-22 Ten Grand (issue #3)
- 1944-07-20 Of Maestro and Man (issue #3)
- 1944-07-27 The Black Shawl (issue #3)
- 1944-09-21 Bluebeard of Belloc ('A Sense of Smell' from issue #4)
- 1944-10-19 Eve (issue #2 - includes error re: Lucille Ball on cover)
- 1945-07-26 Fury and Sound (issue #1)
- 1945-08-16 Short Order (issue #4)
- 1945-08-23 This Will Kill You ('This'll Kill You' from issue #1)
- 1945-11-08 The Bet (issue #1)
- 1945-11-15 Murder Off Key (issue #4)
- 1945-12-20 Double Entry (issue #3)
- 1946-01-10 This Was a Hero (issue #2 – includes error of Lee J. Cobb on cover)
- 1946-01-47 The Pasteboard Box (issue #3)
- 1946-02-14 Lucky Lady ('Death at Miss Plimm's' from issue #4)
- 1946-03-14 No More Alice (issue #1)
- 1946-08-15 Last Letter of Dr. Bronson (issue #4)
