Dust and Diamonds · Holmes LA

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

A Los Angeles jeweler was burgled over the weekend, and the papers say up to fifteen million dollars is gone. The manager of the building his shop stands in lost nothing, yet the investigators keep coming back to her, and tonight she asks Sherlock Holmes to come. Who emptied the vault?

🎧 Full episode of Holmes LA: a modern Sherlock Holmes audio drama, a radio mystery set in Los Angeles and performed by a full cast.

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

Stories, transcripts and the schedule: https://matezz.com

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

Los Angeles, June 2026. Two ridges over, the hills are burning, and Holmes stands sniffing at the shut window while Dr. Watson, home from the clinic, unwraps the day's fee. Holmes names the chaparral, the black sage and the eucalyptus, from two ridges away, and asks what is in the foil: tacos, payment for one stitched thumb. Then the phone buzzes, a group chat pattering beneath the call like rain. It is Inez, who manages the Palomar building. The jeweler next door, she says, was burgled this weekend. She has lost nothing, but the investigators keep coming back to her, and she asks Holmes to come tonight. Holmes warns that they would get no access and no thanks, and that the clinic cannot carry another unpaid month; Watson answers that they keep returning to a woman who merely manages the place, and Holmes tells Inez they are coming and goes down the steps eating the fee. After two nights on the sidewalk they are let through the dark lobby at last, where Inez explains that the jeweler rents a corner of the same building. She has kept it eleven years, and at the end of the month she may be let go. Round the corner the jeweler, Arakelian, has laid out his trays and does not look up. Holmes asks what was taken, not the figure but the things. The papers' figure, Arakelian says, is up to fifteen million dollars; the things are engagement rings that young men pay off by the week, widows' heirlooms left with him for safekeeping, thirty years of people trusting him. Then Zuri, a client since her first record, arrives to ask what is left of everything she left with him, and Arakelian, gone grey, says he must telephone every family himself, today. Who emptied the vault, and who will be made to answer for it?

From the series Holmes LA: a real Los Angeles crime reimagined as a modern Sherlock Holmes radio mystery, performed by a full multi-voice AI cast with an original score and sound design.

Loosely inspired by a real Los Angeles case of recent years. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including a jeweler, his family, staff and clients, recording artists, the manager and owners of a building and its tenants, the police, federal agents and other investigators, and anyone suspected or accused of the burglary — are invented for drama, and so is the solution of the mystery. Where a real city, district, street or public body is mentioned, its part in this story is invented; the jeweler's shop, the building and the places 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: Los Angeles — June 2026.

Writer v2.7 — the studio's newest writing process: the plot is planned and checked by an AI story editor, then each act is drafted with the whole story in view and edited before a word is voiced — and then cast and performed with our new casting and voice direction.

Chapters:
0:00 Hills Burning, Holmes Sniffing at a Shut Window
2:35 Two Nights on the Sidewalk, Then the Dark Lobby
4:35 The Jeweler Who Did Not Look Up
6:11 A Steel Door at the Top of an Iron Stair
7:43 A Lieutenant in a Paper Suit
9:17 A Back Seat, Windows Up Against the Smoke
10:21 A Back Office, Left Ajar
11:29 Fryer Grease and Smoke in the Alley
12:40 Notes on the Kitchen Table, Holmes Flat on the Floor
13:23 The Lieutenant Meets Them in the Showroom
15:08 A Week On, the Jeweler's Shop Sealed With Police Tape
16:16 A Windowless Room and a Bolted Table
17:50 Back Up After Dark
19:29 A Showroom With Every Tray Gone
21:39 The Front Row, a Penlight and a Notebook
22:28 Four at the Alley Door
24:18 Up the Iron Stair Once More
26:37 The Last Entry in the Case Log

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