Podcasts: a bomb‑detector con that fooled militaries and new recommended shows

The Guardian's pick of the week is Explosive Lies, narrated by Alice Levine, which the piece describes as a slickly produced tale of a con that fooled governments and militaries. The story follows Steve, an ex‑copper who helps his childhood best pal sell a supposedly cutting‑edge bomb detector and ends up with detectives arresting him.

The article says the action flits from questionable Hong Kong banks to the Iraqi airports in which the device was installed as a security measure, with potentially lethal consequences. Explosive Lies is described as widely available, with episodes released weekly. Other recommended listens include Mercy, a monologue‑based one‑off drama starring Joanna Scanlan and written by Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw, in which a nurse forced into early retirement talks about everything from patients' sex appeal to why people should never stop smoking.

Radio 4’s Intrigue strand returns with Ransom Man, in which Jenny Kleeman revisits a hack of a Finnish mental health platform — called “the McDonald’s of therapy” in the piece — that led to thousands of patients’ private records being released and the trauma that followed.

Key Topics

Culture, Explosive Lies, Iraqi Airports, Hong Kong Banks, Ransom Man, Alice Levine