Static on the Karadin · Istanbul Confidential

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

Late one night in Istanbul, a British wireless officer slips through the beer halls to the detective Kemal Arslan. Hungary wants to give up the war quietly, and she has handed its envoy two wireless sets and the one code sheet that works them. Now it lies crated in his consulate, and she has heard something. Is the secret safe?

🎧 Full episode of Istanbul Confidential: a wartime espionage radio drama set in neutral Istanbul, an audio mystery 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.

Istanbul, autumn 1944. Late one night a woman climbs the stairs to the rooms above a glass-roofed arcade in Péra where the detective Kemal Arslan lives with his chronicler, Captain Demir. She is Miss Pell, a wireless officer with the British, and she has come through the beer halls so that nobody knows she is out. Aboard a British yacht on the Karadin, she says, she handed the Hungarian envoy, a man called Geza, two wireless sets and the one sheet that works them: Hungary wants to give up, quietly, and Ankara will not hear of it. Now sets and sheet are crated at his consulate, waiting on a courier to Budapest, and if that sheet ever reached the Germans, men would hang for it. She has heard something she will not yet tell, and she wants no Turkish police. Arslan goes to the consulate as a friend of the Captain, who goes as a writer at work on a book on Hungarians in exile. They meet the Envoy, who swears his crate is sealed in his strongroom; his secretary, Madame Ilona, who keeps his diary; and the doorkeeper Yusuf, who knows a hawker when he sees one. Before it is over Arslan will also call on Inspector Nurettin of the Emniyet at Sirkeci. Who opened the sealed crate, and what did Miss Pell hear?

From the series Istanbul Confidential: a real event of the 1940s reimagined as a classic noir radio mystery, performed by a full multi-voice AI cast with an original score and sound design.

Loosely inspired by a real event of the 1940s. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including a Hungarian envoy and the diplomats, officials and staff of a consulate, a British wireless officer and the British mission, the Turkish police and security officials, German agents and officers, couriers and informers, the investigators, and anyone suspected or accused of opening the crate — are invented for drama, and so is the solution of the mystery. Where a real city, district, building, police force, army or government is mentioned, its part in this story is invented; the consulate, the wireless room and the police offices 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: Istanbul — autumn 1944.

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 A Woman on the Stairs, Hiding Her Hurry
1:46 A Narrow House Below the Grande Rue
3:45 A Wireless Room Under the Roof
5:18 Down the Cellar Stairs by Lamplight
6:47 Yusuf's Lodge, a Cupboard With a Stove
8:10 Dusk on the Garden Terrace
9:28 A Building the City Crossed the Street to Avoid
10:48 The Chancery at Noon, Chicory and Carbon Paper
12:15 The Envoy's Complaint Comes Downstairs
13:33 A Great Book Under the Envoy's Arm
14:57 Below the Inspector's High Room
16:48 Two Answers Reach the Inspector by Evening
18:43 Lamps Along the Sirkeci Landing
19:52 Three Chairs Stood Ready by Ten
21:44 Nobody Reached for the Tea
24:05 A Chair Turned to Face Miss Pell
26:06 The Arcade Swept, the Shutters Closed

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