The Dead Button · Holmes NYC

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

A Manhattan jeweler says a masked gunman made her open her own safe. Her insurer's investigator says no door was forced, no safe was drilled, and the line to her panic button never once showed a fault in fourteen months of nightly checks. Was she robbed at gunpoint, or did she rob herself?

🎧 Full episode of Holmes NYC: a modern Sherlock Holmes audio drama, a radio mystery set in New York 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.

Brooklyn, March 2021. On a Wednesday evening, with sleet ticking at the brownstone windows, Holmes has a crossword and a pencil and Dr. Watson is losing a war with an espresso machine, when a jeweler named Anouk knocks at the door. Her showroom in Manhattan was robbed that day, and before morning she needs a detective who works for her, not for her insurance company. At the showroom the insurer's investigator, Zabriskie, is already there beside the open safe, and much of the stock was only consigned to Anouk by other dealers. Outside in the sleet stands Captain Gallagher of Homicide. Her witnesses, a doorman and a dog walker, saw three masked men; the district attorney is pulling Anouk's bank records; and her demand of Holmes is plain: somebody else, or the DA charges Anouk. Back inside, Zabriskie's laptop holds fourteen months of nightly checks on the panic line, not one of them showing a fault, and Gallagher plays the recording of Anouk's nine-one-one call, made four minutes after the doorman saw the men walk off. Down in the basement the superintendent, Bruno, who loses his flat on Friday, refuses to open the steel room where the alarm line runs, and an electrician, Ray, up a ladder under a bare bulb, is working the landlord's halls at night. Whose account holds up?

From the series Holmes NYC: a real New York 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 New York case of the 2020s. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including jewelers and shop owners, insurers and their investigators, building owners and staff, anyone suspected or accused of a robbery, the prosecutors, 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 showroom, the building and the precinct 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: Brooklyn and Manhattan, New York — March 2021.

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 Crossword and an Espresso Machine
2:47 Glass Cases and an Open Safe
4:27 Two Coffees Under the Scaffolding
5:49 A Laptop Beside the Safe
6:55 The Nine-One-One Recording
8:24 Heating Oil and a Bare Bulb
9:53 Packing Tape and Liquor-Store Boxes
11:10 A Steel Door on Rusted Hinges
12:41 Mailboxes and a Stepladder
14:02 Near Midnight at the Emptied Safe
15:26 Past One With the Heater Roaring
16:25 First Light, Back Inside
17:39 A Bolted Table in the Interview Room
19:09 Toward Noon, Down on the Carpet
20:53 A Midnight Walk Along the Park Wall
21:54 Holmes Perched on the Counter at Nine
23:41 A Hum of Fluorescent Tubes
25:37 Back by the Knocking Radiator

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