Suspense 600214 840 Sorry, Wrong Number (128 44) 23687 24m55s

# Sorry, Wrong Number

Picture yourself hunched over the radio on a cold evening, the rest of the house dark and silent, when a woman's terrified voice crackles through the speaker—a voice that has accidentally intercepted a murder plot meant for someone else's ears. In "Sorry, Wrong Number," the pioneering dramatist Lucille Fletcher crafts a masterpiece of claustrophobic terror, trapping listeners in a sickbed alongside a bedridden woman who discovers she may be the intended victim of a carefully orchestrated crime. As she frantically works the telephone, desperately trying to convince police of her peril and piece together the puzzle of who wants her dead, the walls seem to close in—each ring of the phone, each disconnected operator, each moment of disbelief from those she calls ratchets the tension toward an inevitable, chilling conclusion. The sound design becomes your prison: the hum of the telephone line, the scratchy connections, the ambient noise of the night, all conspiring to amplify the dread.

"Sorry, Wrong Number" exemplifies why *Suspense* became radio's most celebrated thriller anthology during its two-decade run. Broadcast live before audiences in CBS studios, the show became legendary for its innovative storytelling and refusal to rely on mere gore or supernatural gimmicks—instead, it mined psychological terror from everyday situations. Fletcher's script, which had already succeeded as a stage play, revealed that the most frightening scenarios often hide in plain sight, in the domestic spaces we thought safe. The 1944 broadcast you're about to hear captures the golden age of radio drama, when actors performed without a net and sound effects wizards created entire worlds through ingenuity and artistry.

Prepare yourself for twenty-five minutes that will keep you checking your locks. This is essential listening for anyone who understands that true horror whispers through the telephone line.