Blood Memory: Review of Love+Radio's Newest Series

From the House of Love+Radio comes the Tribeca-winning series that lands on an epic level and expands what true crime is and does

I feel like I’ve been in a trance for days, listening to the advance copy of the entire 10-episode series of Blood Memory generously shared with me from the folks at Love+Radio.

There’s a scene in Episode 2 (which is publicly out now), where the host and lead producer Nick van der Kolk rolls down his car window to talk to a man, who we come to realize is the main protagonist. For L+R loyalists, you know how rare scene tape is. I keep hearing that sound—of the car window going down—and I realize that in my mind, I’ve been hiding out in the back of Nick’s truck as he drives around talking to the enigmatic, undeniably charismatic formerly incarcerated, former Aryan Brotherhood gang leader-turned-informant, Michael Thompson.

Maybe this fugue state is because I’m trying to think if anyone, ever, pulled off a non-narrated true crime. Who thought that we could get through through all that legal mumbo-jumbo without the likes of Sarah Koenig there to tell us how to think? Or maybe it’s about whether anyone has even bothered to try to tell a complicated, decade’s-long, story that involves a potential redemption arc, but then also doesn’t litigate the proceedings and help the listener to file their thoughts into a neat and tidy box?

Over their past almost-twenty-years of producing, the team at Love+Radio— a ship helmed by Nick van der Kolk and has housed many talents folks throughout the last decade—has done similar stories; ones that shock and seduce and surprise you. But never on this scale. Blood Memory is 10 episodes long…just about 7.5 hours of captivating audio that reportedly spanned 10 years worth of reporting and production.

So where do you start with this?

Let’s start with what this series is not

This is a non-narrated piece. Nick van der Kolk has a lovely radio voice, someone whom I’m sure you would enjoy listening the 7+ hours that this story is, spread out over 10 episodes. But like everything in his extensive back catalogue, he narrated this series most sparingly. When his voice does appear, most often it’s through a produced sound that makes it appear as though it’s through a telephone, or if he’s in the room he’s on the XY mics at a distance. Probably he was on the telephone for some of this reporting; instead of removing that layer of disconnection between host and subject, he draws a bright red line under it.

This is not a series that will lead you to feel compelled to mentally exonerate a criminal. This is not a Set-The-Record-Straight for a wrongfully convicted man, although, depending on who you ask, he may have entered prison on a wrongful conviction at the age of 22-years-old. Love+Radio stays absolutely true to its roots and lets the people in the story speak for themselves. And as always, you get to decide if they are wrong or right, guilty or innocent.

This series is not trying to achieve some new moral high ground. It’s not a campaign to get you to think about crime and criminals differently. It’s not here to make you fall in love with the convicted criminal at hand, like so many true crime docs are ultimately trying to do. Because here’s the thing: Love+Radio is just as interested in your opinion of what think happened as they are of their own ideas.

Careful listening is required

You are not going to be spoon-fed this narrative. There are modestly few signposts. There are almost no introductions (except for the voice stamp IDs offered at the very very very end of Episode 1- I suggest you stick around for that if you intend to keep listening). If you don’t already understand the narrative conventions that L+R use (chapter headings, ‘telephone voice,’ and the call-and-answer nature of a question), I wish you luck in solving this true crime caper. But honestly, holy crap, it still works. Even when you go through this slowly and meticulously, as I have this past week, all the pieces fall into line. There’s only one way to say it: it’s a true original. It is both masterful and genre-defining….but not one that will be easily repeated.

As I listened to this series, it felt like I could hear circular brush strokes. You know when you look at an image for long enough, you notice that under the thing you’re looking at, there are circles of pen and ink below? Put together these make up the texture of the image. Perhaps it’s the feathers of the birds. Or the texture of the fabric on the clothing. Or the way the bark clings to the trunk of the tree. All of these pen strokes are their own thing, buried below the surface. And that’s both different and the same as the image you’re looking at.

No one is there to tell you what to think. Or how to feel. Or whether this person or that person is full of shit. The entire story is both proven and disproven for you, in circular brush strokes. You may hear only part of it (which is the most likely scenario) and in that case, you will frame your verdict based on the advice that you recall, or remember, or connect to you. As for the other parts, and there are many, they may or may not serve as relevant bits of information. Depending on how closely you listen, these details are either colour, or shading, all layers to the story that you hear.

But really, no harm if you get lost. Although it is a legit true crime story and holds all the cards to fit into that pervasive genre, it’s not really a whodunit. In the end, it’s a story about good and evil. Whether both parts exist equally or fully in any one person. And then equally, it’s about whether that equation really matters at all.

And to answer those questions, you can dip your toe, or fully dive in.

If you want to fully dive in, find Love+Radio and their Patreon, to get some early listening.

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AND ALSO…

Ideas, connections, pitches, inspo, don’t forget…

1 - CBC has an open call for pitches right now. The pitch period runs until April 1st and you can submit at cbc.ca/pitch.

ALSO, there’s an info session about the call for pitches.
When: Tuesday, Feb. 17th, 2026 from 11am ET to 12 pm ET
Where: Google Meet (https://meet.google.com/hdx-ynxc-ext)
Who: Arif Noorani (Director), Chris Oke (Executive Producer) and Andrew Friesen (Development Coordinator) at CBC Podcasts.

Click here to add this event to your calendar.

2- Radiophrenia Open Call for 2026 Broadcasts…two days left!
Submit your work on their website and find further details there:
Deadline for submissions: 14th February, 2026.

3 - The ECCO - call for entries for the prompt “Cleave”
Find out more HERE on their website

4 - Listening - Small Audio Art has a new round of short pieces to listen to with the theme “Kitchen Sink”

5 - Audio Flux is coming back soon…And they’ve got an Ask Us Anything virtual event, March 2nd at 4:30p ET, with John and Julie.