Istanbul Confidential
Wartime espionage noir in neutral Istanbul
- 7episodes
- 3 h 17 minof drama
- 1941–1949setting years
Istanbul, 1939 to 1950: a neutral city on the Bosphorus where diplomats, spies and ferry captains all drink in the same cafes. Kemal Arslan, a consulting detective, and Captain Haluk Demir, a retired ferry captain and old friend who tells each story, work cases the great powers would rather keep quiet.
The stories are loosely inspired by real cases. Every name, place and figure is changed and the solution is invented, so these are fictions, never reports of what happened.
The writing, voices, music, sound effects and artwork are AI-generated, and a human listens to and revises every episode. How it is made.
Episodes in Istanbul Confidential
Berlin Never Answers
In wartime Istanbul a money-changer from Galata climbs to the detective Kemal Arslan's rooms and will come no further than the landing. One English banknote is warm in his waistcoat, and he says it is not the money that frightens him. Then an inspector reports a secret wireless set that calls Berlin every night and is never answered. Who is calling?
Static on the Karadin
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?
The Sick Uncle
General Dorn, the German commander on Chios, vanished from the island four nights ago. The German consulate swears he was carried into Turkey, Ankara fears a pretext for war in Thrace, and the police director, writing in his own hand with no letterhead, asks the Istanbul detective Kemal Arslan to look into it quietly. Whatever became of the general, whom does his vanishing serve?
No Envoy Came
Selim Hoca, a schoolteacher whose society was banned, goes to a hall in Istanbul to meet an envoy from Ankara. He is shot at the curb outside. The tea is untouched, the hall's telephone line has been cut with pliers, and the police director wants a quick verdict. Who shot him?
The Case of the Marenna
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?
The Cuckoo's Hour
A letter signed by men who call themselves the Brigade says an Istanbul hotel was telephoned a warning at ten past twelve, well before its wing came down. The switchboard operator who took the call swears it was half past. Which of them is right about the time?
The Nickel War
After a Sirkeci freight clerk is strangled and his death is filed as a robbery, why does his widow bring his hidden book to a detective instead of the police?
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