Welcoming the Competition

Today brings the launch of CrimeReads, a new subsection of the Web site Literary Hub that hopes to “showcase[e] the best writing from the worlds of crime, mystery, and thrillers.” Describing plans for this new resource, editors Dwyer Murphy and Molly Odintz write:

We’ll bring you stories that represent the vast scope of crime literature today—writing that gives full weight to ideas, that revels in a sense of place, that embraces differing viewpoints, all coexisting under the same big umbrella. Today, day one for CrimeReads, you can read Laura Lippman’s celebration of James M. Cain’s transgressive noir, an essay on spy fiction and the black American experience, a personal story about a life of activism and writing mysteries, and a conversation with the godfather of legal thrillers, Scott Turow. Over the coming days, you’ll find articles about fugitive enclaves under attack from the CIA, the rise of paramilitary narcos in Colombia, a new monthly column from “The Crime Lady” Sarah Weinman, exclusive fiction from Jo Nesbø, Lars Kepler, Donna Leon, and many others. You’ll see more noir stills, and pulp covers than you can shake a stick at, and hopefully you’ll read something worth obsessing over.

Every time a new crime fiction-oriented site like this makes its debut, I feel a small pang of regret that The Rap Sheet hasn’t the monetary wherewithal or staff to become much bigger or more influential than it already is. Then again, it’s exhausting to run a larger editorial operation, as I know from having edited magazines and newspapers. Maybe The Rap Sheet is just the right size for me nowadays.