Obsessed! (And you will be, too.)

Have you ever heard me talk about This American Life, that most glorious radio show, which would surely make it onto my desert island list of necessities? You really ought to listen to it. Each week, they take a theme and produce a variety of stories relating to that theme. It’s truly wonderful, every single week. Now they've made a spin-off called Serial. Instead of telling a story during one episode, the way This American Life does, Serial tells a single story over the course of a season of episodes.

This inaugural season, it’s the story of Hae Min Lee, a high school senior who disappeared in Maryland in 1999. Her strangled body was found buried in a park a few weeks later. Authorities soon arrested her ex-boyfriend, a 17-year-old kid named Adnan Syed. Adnan was well-liked in the community, very popular at school (he was crowned Prom Prince), and had lots of friends, all of whom were shocked when he was arrested for Hae’s murder. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in a Maryland prison, where he has been for the past 15 years. He claims he had nothing to do with her murder.

The host of Serial, Sarah Koenig, examines reams of evidence, trying to decipher a case with loads of twists and turns (Why was a witness who claimed to see Adnan at the time of the murder never called to testify? Why was Adnan supposedly in one place when his cell phone was pinging a cell tower 45 miles away?). You will swing from “He’s definitely innocent” to “He’s definitely guilty!” and back again, with plenty of “Oh, I just don’t know” along the way. It is so compelling.

The Serial episodes can be downloaded as a podcast or listened to from the website here. The website also has photos, maps, letters, call logs, and other evidence you can peruse should you become completely obsessed (you will).

So far, there are six episodes out with a new one each Thursday. The only way they could make it better is if they dropped all the episodes, House-of-Cards-style, all at once so I could binge-listen to them. I keep telling myself I’ll wait and let a few accumulate, but then Thursday rolls around and I need my ear candy.

Go listen!