Aberystwyth Noir: Private Detective Louie Knight

The spoof hardboiled thrillers with Wales’s top private investigator dramatised by BBC Radio.

This marvelous collection of Malcolm Pryce’s acclaimed Aberystwyth Noir radio productions are set in an alternative version of Aberystwyth, where the streets are filled with veterans of the Patagonian War (Wales’s answer to Vietnam), the Druids are mob bosses, and the ice cream is…unusual, to say the least.

The first play, Aberystwyth Mon Amour, sees Louie Knight, the town’s top private investigator – maybe its only private investigator – in search of the schoolboys who have been vanishing with increasing frequency. To do it, he’ll need all his wits about him – and the guts to stake out a Punch and Judy show, no matter the consequences…

In Last Tango in Aberystwyth, Louise Knight and sidekick Calamity Jane are drawn into the seedy world of the town’s ‘What the Butler Saw’ film industry, complete with dead ventriloquists and Druid assassins. But when Louie receives a call from his long lost love and gets news of an old enemy, what will he risk in the name of revenge?

In the final play, Aberystwyth Noir – It Ain’t Over Till the Bearded Lady Sings, Louie and Jane look into the death of Mr Big Top, another gunned-down victim of the Druids. It feels like trouble from the start, but that doesn’t mean Louie will stop; in fact, he’s half-way to the End of the Pier show before anyone knows he’s even on the case. Between the balloon twister, the bearded lady, and the Amazing Mr Marmalade, will Louie discover what’s really going on? Or will his nemesis, former games teacher turned lion tamer Herod Jenkins, mean Louie’s end, once and for all?