The Case of the Marenna · Istanbul Confidential

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

After a rust hulk crowded with emigrant families sinks off Eskiova in the night, what is the Karaköy quay waiting to learn, and whose name will its grief demand?

Read the story and the full transcript: https://matezz.com/episodes/the-case-of-the-marenna-istanbul-confidential/

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

In the second week of November 1941, a telephone rings in the rooms above the arcade. Inspector Tevfik, the port liaison of the Emniyet, reports that a rust hulk carrying emigrant families has gone down off Eskiova overnight. Those who reached shore are camped on the Karaköy quay among their luggage, while more than two hundred people are still in the water. Tevfik wants Kemal Arslan to listen to them before grief turns ugly, because quays run short on patience and long on rumour. Arslan and his friend Captain Haluk go down to the water. They find that the ship's manifests went down with her, so no widow can prove she is one. By a brazier they meet Rahel, a saddler's widow from Balat, who paid for her husband's berth with the shop's winter takings and presses his photograph into the detective's hand. That evening a fisherman named Yorgo climbs the stairs with a drowned man's coat from his nets. Sewn into the lining are two steamship tickets, and in the buttoned pocket is a berth ticket marked with a ship's name, the Marenna, and the number 327. Whose berth was it, and what does the harbour office know about the vessel that carried it?

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

Loosely inspired by a real Istanbul case of the 1940s. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including the emigrant families, the fishermen and tradespeople of the quays, 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 ship, the harbour office and the quay 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, November 1941 — with Eskiova, Karaköy, Balat and Kestane.

Chapters:
0:00 A Cold Telephone Above the Arcade
1:43 Camped Among the Luggage
3:48 A Fisherman at the Door
5:33 Rain on the Harbour Office
7:20 Leather Dust in Balat
8:59 Dusk Over the Saddler's Street
10:35 Morning and a Restless Inspector
12:20 Noon by the Harbour Stove
15:02 Night Tea Above the Arcade
16:50 Morning at the Scarred Desk
18:23 Afternoon at the Saddler's Bench
20:12 The Lamp Burns Late
21:52 An Hour Before Dawn
24:17 A Door Pushed Open
25:12 Lamps Going Out Below
26:39 First Light on the Quay

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