A Life of Crime (audio story)

was the two hundred and fourteenth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Matt Fitton and featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor, Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush and Sophie Aldred as Ace.
== Publisher's summary ==
Come to Ricosta! Tropical climate, untouched beaches, fabulous cuisine... and no extradition treaties. The perfect retirement planet for a certain type of "business person" — such as Ms Melanie Bush, formerly the co-owner of the Iceworld emporium, now on the run from her former criminal associate's criminal associates...
Some other former associates of Ms Bush are abroad in this space Costa del Crime, however. Not long ago, the time and space traveller known as the Doctor arrived here, alongside his sometimes-criminal associate, the reformed juvenile offender Ace. But now the Doctor's gone missing — and Melanie Bush is about to learn that on the planet Ricosta, the wages of sin... are death.
== Plot ==
=== Part one ===
to be added
=== Part two ===
to be added
=== Part three ===
to be added
=== Part four ===
to be added
== Cast ==
* The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
* Mel - Bonnie Langford
* Ace - Sophie Aldred
* Gloria / Secretary - Ginny Holder
* Lefty Lonnigan - Des McAleer
* Nathan Later - Stephen Hagan
* Atomon / Sperovore Banker / Steward - Harry Myers
* Mayor / Sperovore Auditor / Sperovore Financer - John Banks
== Crew ==
* Cover Art - Tom Webster
* Director - Ken Bentley
* Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
* Music and Sound Design - Fool Circle Productions
* Producer - David Richardson
* Script Editor - Alan Barnes
* Writer - Matt Fitton
== Worldbuilding ==
* Gloria gives 500 grotzits to the Mayor.
* Mel lost her ship, the Nosferatu III, when it was impounded.
* Lefty Lonnigan is a cyborg. He received his nickname because only the left side of his body is still human. He was injured over 20 years ago.
* Gloria offers Mel a glass of Gadalaxian champagne.
* She uses a Time Lord neurotoxin.
* Lefty compares Ricostans to ferrets, though Gloria believes that they more closely resemble raccoons.
* Ace has read about regeneration.
* Ace compares Lefty to Long John Silver.
* The Speravores are one of the wealthiest species in the Andromeda Galaxy, if not the wealthiest. They run Sperovore Investment (or S.I.) Holdings.
* Lefty once robbed a bank on Andromeda IX; when being fed on by the Sperovores, he realises that he would have escaped with the money if he'd taken a different turn at a particular point.
* Sperovores are quantum eaters: they feed on quantum potential futures, choices from the multiverse, and break down the walls of reality. They eat criminals, with every moment relived at death as they dissolve 1 molecule at a time.
* They follow a psychic spore to keep track of a quantum trace.
* Mel has the scent of many realities with many different futures, which she sometimes dreams of.
* Ace explains that potential energy moves between every point in the multiverse.
== Notes ==
* This story was recorded on 2 and 3 February 2016 at the Moat Studios.
* In a reference to the Doctor's faked regeneration, Mel asks Gloria, "What did you do? Bung on a hat and a wig? Fake some special effects?" This is an in-joke referring to the fact that Sylvester McCoy played the Sixth Doctor during his regeneration into his seventh incarnation in Time and the Rani as Colin Baker declined to return.
== Continuity ==
* The galactic common currency is the grotzit. (TV: The Mysterious Planet, Dragonfire)
* Lefty was Glitz's best friend. (TV: The Mysterious Planet, Dragonfire)
* Mel tells Gloria that she met Glitz on Iceworld. (TV: Dragonfire)
* Ace refers to the fact that the Doctor stole the TARDIS. (TV: An Unearthly Child, Logopolis, The Name of the Doctor; AUDIO: The Beginning)
* Lefty refers to Ravolox, (TV: The Mysterious Planet) Iceworld (TV: Dragonfire) and Vandor Prime. (PROSE: Mission: Impractical)
* A Foamasi representative is visiting Ricosta. (TV: The Leisure Hive)
* Mel tells Gloria that she is aware that the Doctor can regenerate from personal experience. (AUDIO: The Brink of Death; TV: Time and the Rani)
* Mel refers to the fact that the Doctor procured a new umbrella in the Warehouse. (AUDIO: The Warehouse)
* Mel recalls the Doctor telling her his days were "like crazy paving" just before she departed the TARDIS. (TV: Dragonfire)
* Ace once again exclaims, "Gordon Bennett!" (TV: Dragonfire, The Happiness Patrol, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Battlefield)
* Ace refers to Long John Silver. During his sixth incarnation, the Doctor met Silver in the Land of Fiction. (AUDIO: Legend of the Cybermen)
* Ace recalls that Glitz used to hang around Iceworld's ice cream parlour when she worked there as a waitress. (TV: Dragonfire)
* Ace again refers to Mel as "Donut". (TV: Dragonfire)
* Mel mentions that she has recently encountered the Porcians (AUDIO: You are the Doctor) and visited the Grand Betelgeuse Hotel. (AUDIO: The Grand Betelgeuse Hotel) The Doctor determines that the two humans who escaped from Chimbly and Keith were Mel and Glitz (AUDIO: You are the Doctor) and that the woman going by the name of Ms Zingiber, whom Norris claimed had visited immediately before the Doctor and Ace's arrival and who later stayed at the Grand Betelgeuse Hotel, was Mel (AUDIO: Come Die With Me, The Grand Betelgeuse Hotel).
* The Doctor notes that Mel has a memory like an elephant. (TV: The Ultimate Foe, Time and the Rani; AUDIO: The One Doctor, Unregenerate!, The Warehouse)
* Ace tells Mel that the Doctor has been giving her lessons in flying the TARDIS. (AUDIO: You Are the Doctor, Come Die With Me, The Grand Betelgeuse Hotel, Dead to the World)
* Ace uses Nitro-9 against the Sperivores. (TV: Dragonfire, Remembrance of the Daleks, et. al)
* The Nine would later pretend to be a regeneration of the Eighth Doctor in order to deceive Liv Chenka and Helen Sinclair. (AUDIO: The Crucible of Souls)
== External links ==
Category:Audio stories that use the Keff McCulloch theme
Category:Stories set in the far future
Category:Seventh Doctor Main Range audio stories
Category:2016 Main Range audio stories
fr:A Life of Crime (audio)