Chapter 5: Tower Town and Magic City
About the series ...
TRUE NOIR: The Assassination of Anton Cermak is a fully-immersive audio series adapted from the mystery novel TRUE DETECTIVE by Max Allan Collins.
The drama is set in Chicago at the end of the Prohibition Era (in the early 1930s) and tells the story of private eye Nathan Heller as he tracks down a political assassin. Mayor Anton Cermak was in a nearly constant power struggle with organized crime, business tycoons, and corrupt politicians … leaving plenty of suspects.
New episodes appear every Friday through February 28, 2025.
A little more about this episode …
Max Allan Collins talks about Prohibition-era Chicago’s darker (and sexier) side. He gives us more information about “Tower Town” and the artists, radicals, and hobos who lived there.
Max also provides a mini-lecture on the history of the “hard-boiled detective” and how the rules established for that kind of American hero in the 20s, 30s, and 40s had to be broken by the time he was writing about Nate Heller in the 1970s and 80s.
Take a closer look at this chapter with Max’s exclusive History Behind The Mystery series of videos.
Check out more episodes of this series ...
Chapter 8: Too Long At The Fair
Heller watches a capacity crowd celebrate the opening of the Chicago World’s Fair. Little does he know he’s standing at the crossroads of his two biggest cases – and things are about to take an unexpected turn.
Chapter 7: Trial Run
Just three days after Chicago Mayor Cermak dies from an assassin’s bullet, the Bayfront Park Shooter is tried for attempted murder on four counts and sentenced to eighty years. But Heller knows there’s more to the story than a lunatic with a gun.
Chapter 6: Welcome to Miami, Mr. President
Chicago Mayor Cermak hopes to curry favor with President-Elect Franklin Roosevelt at a political rally in Miami’s Bayfront Park. But among the spectators is a hitman sent by a Chicago mob boss – and only Heller can stop him.
Chapter 4: Two New Clients
The day after Christmas, Heller takes a sleeper car to Atlanta on the Dixie Flyer, riding into a job that will put him at odds with the most powerful men in Chicago.