Saki Knafo, host and writer of the first episode of the podcast “Conviction.”
(James Cabrera / Gimlet Media)
BY JODY ROSEN
March 22, 2019
Less than a minute into the first episode of “Conviction,” the latest release from the Gimlet Media podcast network, the narration takes on a hardboiled tone.
“Manny Gomez, private eye, lives alone in a small apartment in a quiet part of the Bronx,” says Saki Knafo, the show’s host and writer. “He’s got this watch that’s really a camera, and he has a pen that’s really a knife. He says his favorite book is the Bible, but the one he talks about most often is ‘The Art of War.’ ”
Those sentences carry echoes of classic pulp detective fiction, whose tough-talking gumshoes were also the stars of old-time radio serials, the “podcasts” of an earlier age.
It’s a nervy move to begin a nonfiction tale of crime, cops and municipal corruption with a big…
