This radio drama uses AI-generated writing, voices, music, sound effects and artwork. All spoken performances in this edition use ElevenLabs V4.

On the evening an indicted godfather holds his Thursday coffee hour in Prague, a shot bursts his tall window and scatters glass over the cups. Who fired it?

Listen as a podcast, with full transcripts: https://mono-noir.transistor.fm/

Prague, March 2004. Fog drifts off the Vltava as Pavel, a Malá Strana bookseller, waits behind his shop with the evening paper, and his friend Zima, a weary detective, climbs in from the wet. The headline says the godfather Kolář has been indicted, and court bailiffs with a locksmith have until Friday to box his entire archive for the state attorney. Forty crates, perhaps more, of receipts, tapes and photographs, and nobody in the city knows whose faces are in them. Zima doesn't mean to touch the paper. He means to watch who grows nervous before the seals go on. Days later the two visit Dagmar, the newspaper's editor, who is hungry for something to fill tomorrow's page. They talk of the godfather's famous Thursday coffee hours: the same room, the same tall window, ministers who sat with him off the record. Indicted is not convicted, Zima reminds her, and Kolář still keeps his table that very evening. Then the shot comes. Irena, the housekeeper who has poured the coffee for thirty years, receives the pair in the ruined room. She speaks of a kettle singing, a window kept shut against the cold since October, and a fifth cup nobody will lift. Who was in that room that evening, and what did each of them see?

From the series Velvet Shadows: a real post-communist Prague case reimagined as a modern noir radio mystery, performed by a full multi-voice AI cast with an original score and sound design.

Loosely inspired by a real Czech case of the 2000s. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including a bookseller, a newspaper editor, a housekeeper, a night watchman, a crime boss, the investigators and the police — are invented for drama, and so is the solution of the mystery. Where a real city, state, public body or newspaper is mentioned, its part in this story is invented; the newspaper, the firm and the house named in it are invented too. This is a work of fiction, not a factual account of any real person or institution. No real person is portrayed, and no real individual, company or organisation is accused of any act shown here.

Setting: Prague, March 2004 — with Malá Strana and Lipenská Street.

Chapters:
0:00 Fog Over Malá Strana
1:41 Page One, Page Five
3:36 The Night Watchman Takes Tea
5:51 Glass Over the Coffee Cups
7:54 Nails Driven Into an Era
9:39 Evidence by the Tin Stove
11:36 A Quiet Street at Mid-Morning
12:58 Back Across Town
14:29 Midnight in the Shot-Torn Room
16:22 Two Facts and a Nightcap
17:57 Morning at the Bookshop Counter
19:42 A Cold Cup, a Warm Question
22:00 Questions Among Bare Shelves
24:06 Grey Light on the Street
25:49 Below the House Before Dawn
27:31 Midnight Bells, Quiet Street

#MonoNoirRadioDrama #NoirMystery #AudioDrama

This radio drama uses AI-generated writing, voices, music, sound effects and artwork. All spoken performances in this edition use ElevenLabs V4.

A week after the Damascus army's radio-silence drill, a ruined wireless importer arrives at Baker Street with three seized ledgers and a whisper of treason hanging over him. Is he the traitor the army is hunting, or only the man it has settled on?

Listen as a podcast, with full transcripts: https://mono-noir.transistor.fm/

🎭 Directed Edition — every role cast for this story and every line performed with full voice direction.

On a frosty February evening in 1964, a half-frozen wireless importer named Tawfiq climbs the stairs at Baker Street. A week earlier the army in Damascus held a radio-silence drill. Afterwards police arrived with a warrant and carried off his three ledgers. The bazaar has since whispered a dangerous word against him, and his credit is gone. Holmes takes the case and, with Watson, flies to Damascus. They are lodged in guest rooms belonging to Faris, a genial host home from six years in Paris, who counts ministers and colonels among his debtors. Inspector Rashid of the police shows Holmes the ledgers: ruled columns and dates, but not one figure, which he reads as the mark of a foreign paymaster. At army headquarters Major Zahran explains that a single brief burst broke the silence and that his direction-finding vans were waiting for it. Tawfiq, meanwhile, will say little about where his own roads lead. Holmes asks for patience and tells the police to let the merchant walk free for now. Who sent that burst, and why would an honest trader keep books with nothing written in them?

From the series Sherlock Holmes — The New Cases: a real crime of the 1960s reimagined as a classic Sherlock Holmes radio mystery, performed by a full multi-voice AI cast, with sound design and a light score that stays under the story.

Loosely inspired by a real event of the 1960s. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including a ruined wireless merchant, a lavish host, a watchful concierge, an army major, the investigators and the police — are invented for drama, and so is the solution of the mystery. Where a real city, state, public body or newspaper is mentioned, its part in this story is invented; the block of flats, the bazaar and the army headquarters named in it are invented too. This is a work of fiction, not a factual account of any real person or institution. No real person is portrayed, and no real individual, company or organisation is accused of any act shown here.

Setting: London and Damascus — February 1964.

Chapters:
0:00 A Frosty Night in Baker Street
2:28 Arrival in Damascus at Dusk
4:12 The Inspector's Green Lamp
5:50 The Major's Map Room
7:21 Receivers Humming Before Dawn
8:41 A Supper High Above Damascus
10:23 A Hooded Figure at Midnight
11:56 Dawn and a Note Delivered
13:22 A Quiet Mid-Morning Stroll
14:55 Down in the Cells
16:22 An Evening of Wine and Ministers
17:53 Late Talk and a Little Book
19:32 A Sleepless Night of Doubts
20:56 Ledgers Reopened at Headquarters
22:29 Holmes Calls an Afternoon Meeting
23:57 The Dinner Nobody Meant to Eat
25:46 Home to Baker Street Again

#MonoNoirRadioDrama #SherlockHolmes #AudioDrama

This radio drama uses AI-generated writing, voices, music, sound effects and artwork. All spoken performances in this edition use ElevenLabs V4.

Who drained seven billion dollars out of Russia through twin shells and a letterbox, while the one clerk whose signature is on every confirmation begs a detective to look past her?

Listen as a podcast, with full transcripts: https://mono-noir.transistor.fm/

🎭 Directed Edition — every role cast for this story and every line performed with full voice direction.

In March 2016, a settlements clerk at Halvorsen Bank comes to the Moscow detective Maksim Volkov late one rainy evening, file in hand. Seven billion dollars have left Russia over several years, and her signature is on the confirmations that moved it. She begs him to look past the signer and find whoever built the route. Volkov agrees, but warns that he will follow the paper wherever it leads, even through her. With his friend Grigori, the narrator, he visits a wine bar off Pokrovka where the bank's traders drink every night, a little faster each time, and where the clerk, by every account, never joins them. On the settlements floor she shows how the trades are paired, one city buying and the other selling in the very same minute, and admits she has kept those books alone for three years. At the economic-crime directorate on Tverskaya, Inspector Zimin offers only a thin file and two shell companies with bare names, and insists that nothing in print ties them to the money. Late that night Volkov and Grigori sit down with what they have been given. Who built the route, and why does the one person who saw every page remember no names?

From the series Moscow Rules: a real post-Soviet crime reimagined as a modern detective radio mystery, performed by a full multi-voice AI cast with an original score and sound design.

Loosely inspired by a real Russian case of the 2010s. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including the bankers and traders, the clerks, the bar staff and the concierge, the investigators and the police — are invented for drama, and so is the solution of the mystery. Where a real city, state, public body or newspaper is mentioned, its part in this story is invented; the bank, the directorate and the wine bar named in it are invented too. This is a work of fiction, not a factual account of any real person or institution. No real person is portrayed, and no real individual, company or organisation is accused of any act shown here.

Setting: Moscow, March 2016 — with a wine bar off Pokrovka, the economic-crime directorate on Tverskaya and the fog over Sokolniki.

Chapters:
0:00 A Clerk Arrives in the Rain
1:53 A Wine Bar Off Pokrovka
3:47 Binders on the Settlements Floor
5:19 The Directorate on Tverskaya
6:44 Past Midnight at the Piano
8:42 Cold Tea in the Small Hours
9:55 Lights Humming Over the Binders
11:54 A Week Into the Inquiry
14:12 Boxes Sealed and Taped
15:37 The Marble Lobby Near Midnight
17:24 Three Threads, Nothing Joining Them
19:13 Friday Night at the Bar
21:14 Near Dawn, Files Still Stacked
22:34 Saturday Morning on Tverskaya
24:18 The Tower Lobby by Daylight
25:54 Fog Lifting Off Sokolniki

#MonoNoirRadioDrama #NoirMystery #AudioDrama