Original mysteryNo. 2291 hr 14 min30 listenersHercule Poirot
Moscow, March 1933. The snow is grey with coal smoke, foreign engineers are watched as a matter of routine, and a turbine that simply broke down is no longer permitted to have simply broken down. A British engineer is found shot behind his own locked office door. The window is closed. There is no weapon in the room. And beneath his dead hand, three words written in English: "the British did it." Six Englishmen are in the city, and every one of them is now a suspect in something far larger than a murder. There is a page torn out of a technical report. A telephone call from Room Twelve. An envelope of evidence that arrives a little too neatly. And a dying message that everybody in Moscow is reading the wrong way round. As the political machinery closes in and a private crime is dressed up as an international conspiracy, the Belgian Detective and Arthur must reach the truth first — a theft so ordinary that the man who committed it would genuinely rather be suspected of treason. The Moscow Sabotage is an original Golden Age-style mystery about surveillance, confession, and how easily a small crime can be handed a much larger costume. FOR LISTENERS This is an original mystery written by Nocturnal Tales, inspired by the spirit of the great Golden Age crime writers. The plot, characters and text are entirely our own creation; the historical epilogue draws on the real Metro-Vickers affair, which brought Britain and the Soviet Union to the edge of a diplomatic rupture in the spring of 1933. All characters and events in the story are fictional. No affiliation, endorsement, or official connection is implied. A man dies leaving three words, and an entire country reads them exactly backwards. If you had seconds and one line to leave behind, could you write something that couldn't be turned against the people you were trying to protect? Both formats included — EPUB for Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books · PDF for tablets. SUPPORT & LISTENING OPTIONS CREDITS TAGS / KEYWORDS Belgian detective mystery audiobook, Moscow 1933 mystery, Metro-Vickers affair inspired, locked room murder, dying message mystery, Soviet Russia mystery, espionage mystery audiobook, show trial history, Arthur narrator mystery, golden age mystery audiobook, political conspiracy mystery, classic whodunit audiobook, full-length mystery audiobook, historical mystery audiobook
Free to listen, in full, with no account and no password. Your place is remembered in this browser, so you can stop and come back.
Every story on Nocturnal Tales is free, and stays free. Listeners who choose to give are the reason there is a new one tomorrow.
This is our work and what we live on: two of us, writing and producing a story every night. Giving here goes straight to us, rather than through a platform that can change its mind overnight. Why donations are important.
or
Give with PayPalPayPal opens in a new page. Monthly support is easiest to manage through the card option.
No story is ever locked. Payment is handled securely by Stripe — we never see your card details. You can change or cancel your support at any time, from this page, with no explanation needed.
Tell us what you made of this one. No account and no password — just a name.
Max Carrados
It begins with Max Carrados greeting his friend Carlyle at the door and remarking that he has a mystery about him somewhere. He can hear it in the man's step. The mystery is a railway disaster.
by Ernest Bramah
1 hr 7 minNo. 247
A. J. Raffles
Two cases tonight from the gentleman thief who has drawn more requests than anybody else in the Archive. WILFUL MURDER is the darkest thing in the whole collection. Bunny warns us at the outset that most of their robberies will not bear telling at length.
by E. W. Hornung
1 hr 13 minNo. 246
Hercule Poirot
Mexico City, the summer of nineteen twenty-eight. A banquet is given for the man who is about to become President — a soldier who won a civil war, lost an arm doing it, and has spent the years since collecting enemies with the same efficiency he once collected territory.
1 hr 20 minNo. 245
Loveday Brooke
Somebody has got hold of Miss Loveday Brooke's private address, which she had given strict orders was to be handed to nobody at all. Her holiday lasts precisely as long as it takes to read the note.
by Catherine Louisa Pirkis
55 minNo. 244