Mourning Mystery Scene Magazine

Mystery Scene Magazine, one of the major sources of reviews of mystery books and articles for and about mystery authors, will publish its last issue in November 2022.

A Terrible Loss for the Mystery Community

Each of the four issues per year were chock full of reviews that included small press publications, paperback originals, audiobooks, reference books, short story anthologies and books from major publishers. In addition to articles about authors and issues of interest to mystery lovers, four authors were each given a full page to write about their recently released book, in a feature called “My Book.”

It’s Personal Too.

The loss is personal for me. I’ve run full-page ads for my NYPD Detective Chiara Corelli mysteries in many issues of Mystery Scene in the last couple of years. I chose the magazine because of the large number of subscribers in hopes of reaching dedicated mystery readers beyond the writing community. Of course, I have no idea of how or whether the ads impacted sales of the series but that’s true of most advertising. 

And though the magazine never reviewed any of my Corelli books, Publisher and Editor in Chief Kate Stine gave me the opportunity to write several My Book features and published an article I wrote to expose the mainstream mystery community to the wide range of lesbians writing mysteries with lesbian protagonists as amateur detectives, PIs, police officers, and FBI agents. This was invaluable exposure for me and for all the authors included in the article. 

Fall 2002 was the first issue Kate Stine and Brian Skupin put out as publishers and owners. Twenty years is not long enough but it’s a good run. Thank you, Kate and Brian. You will be missed.

Catherine Maiorisi

Catherine Maiorisi is the author of the NYPD Detective Chiara Corelli Mystery series featuring Corelli and her partner Detective P.J. Parker–two tough women, fighting each other while solving high profile crimes. A Matter of Blood, The Blood Runs Cold, A Message in Blood, and Legacy in the Blood are all available as ebooks, paperbacks, and audiobooks narrated by Abby Craden.  

In addition to publishing multiple mystery and romance short stories in various anthologies, Catherine has authored four romances novels. Her latest book, The Disappearance of Lindy James, was awarded a GOLDIE for Best General Fiction.

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