Last look: Crime Scene magazine’s final issue

With all the sang froid of a mob hitman, the publishing directors at Future Publishing have liquidated Crime Scene, the company’s high quality crime fiction magazine and the only one on the shelves devoted to crime fiction. Issue seven has arrived, and sadly it will be the final one, unless the company decides to resurrect it at a later date.

Click here to buy a copy.It could become a collectors item!

Fittingly, the last issue’s cover is devoted to the final series of Broadchurch, which is now showing on ITV. Inside, you’ll find Vicky Power’s eight-page feature all about the crime programme which is set on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast. It includes interviews with the show’s creator, Chris Chimball, as well as Erin Kelly who adapted the first series for a novel.

Another highlight of the issue is an article on the third series of the excellent Welsh crime drama, Hinterland. Shot in Welsh and English, it captures the atmosphere of Britain’s celtic fringe perfectly, and as much as anything the article talks about how the West Wales landscape is as moody a character in the show as Richard Harrington’s portrayal of DCI Mathias. The programme will air on BBC One Wales in April, and on BBC Four nationally in May. Can’t wait!

The magazine also brings you articles about Bosch, Prime Suspect 1973, Danish show Dicte and the mad shooter film Trigger Happy. Fans of forensic fiction will enjoy the feature about Patricia Cornwell, and her method-writing approach to creating the Kay Scarpetta books. Crime readers will also love the four-page interview with Ian Rankin focusing on his Rebus novels.

The issue bills itself as a Morse Special, with a flash on the cover, and this means there are two articles back to back about the Oxford copper. They cover both the origin stories seen in Endeavour, and the classic programme Morse starring John Thaw as Morse and Kevin Whately as Lewis, though there’s little mention of the spin-off show, Lewis.

The magazine’s decline in resources and investment is reflected in the pagination of this slimline final edition – just 100 pages. The section reviewing books and DVDs has dwindled and there are few of the fun, tangential features that marked the early issues such as crime fiction maps, round-ups of vintage crime shows, and fun collections of merchandise such as vinyl toys and Sherlock bobble heads.

It’s sad to see Crime Scene leave the market. A lot of work went into each and every issue, and we wish the team, past and present, all the best.

Click here to buy a copy. Back issues are also still available.

Read all about Broadchurch series three in Crime Scene’s final edition.

If you loved The Night Of, this article on City of Tiny Lights starring Riz Ahmed will be of interest.

Hinterland covered in-depth – one of the best British shows of the decade.

And there’s Morse – one of the best British shows of all time.

That final cover. Click to enlarge.