Taking in the Sites

Just over a year ago, I posted on this page a list of what I thought were the best English-language crime-fiction blogs and Web sites. I did this in response to a bogus assessment along the same lines, perpetrated by a newsfeed aggregator site that had been asking writers to purchase subscriptions to its services in exchange for their sites being listed among its “top 50” blogs for readers of crime, mystery, and thriller fiction. I thought people interested in this genre deserved a more honest rundown of what was found online.

The response to my efforts was overwhelmingly favorable. And it started me thinking that perhaps an annual, or not quite so regular, appraisal of the “best” crime fiction-oriented blogs and Web sites was needed. While there are abundant awards given out every year to novels, short stories, and non-fiction books springing from this genre, only during occasional Bouchercons is there a prize presented for quality in online content—and then, the judging falls to readers with generally narrow scopes of experience in this field, rather than to professional critics evaluating a broader range of sites.

My judgment in this matter is obviously biased. I’ve been writing The Rap Sheet now for more than a dozen years, and I know what I like and don’t like in this arena. I also understand how difficult it is to develop and maintain an active, thoughtful crime-fiction blog, so I look at other such projects through the lens of someone with high expectations as well as a hard-earned knowledge of what can be accomplished when blogging is an unpaid sideline, rather than a full-time occupation.

The Rap Sheet’s 2017 catalogue of the best crime-fiction blogs and Web sites featured 66 electronic publications. This year’s inventory runs to 95 sites. (New entries have been marked with asterisks.) The greater number isn’t because I’ve loosened my standards; it’s simply that I have decided more of these Web projects deserve recognition, and readers of this genre deserve as much help in finding information online as they can get. A few of the blogs I included among last year’s listings have since shut down or gone dormant, including Past Offences, Tipping My Fedora, and of course, Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine, which became inactive shortly before Crider passed away in February 2018. However, I have added a wide variety of sites both large (such as CrimeReads) and small, covering new as well as classic books.

What I emphasized last year still applies: These are my personal choices. I wouldn’t be surprised if other writers and reviewers differ slightly in their opinions of the “best” crime-fiction blogs and Web sites. If I have failed to note any Web resources that you think are also deserving of mention, please feel free to tell everyone about them in the Comments section at the end of this post.

• Ah Sweet Mystery Blog

• Artistic License Renewed*

• At the Villa Rose*

• Beneath the Stains of Time

• Bitter Tea and Mystery

• Black Guys Do Read*

• BOLO Books

• Bookgasm*

• The Bunburyist

• Classic Mysteries

• Col’s Criminal Library*

• The Columbophile*

• Confessions of a Mystery Novelist

• Crime Always Pays: Declan Burke*

• Crime by the Book

• Crime Fiction Ireland*

• Crime Fiction Lover

• A Crime Is Afoot

• Crimepieces

• CrimeReads*

• The Crime Segments*

• Crimespree Magazine

• Crime Thriller Girl

• Crime Time*

• Crime Time Preview*

• Crime Watch (New Zealand)

• Criminal Element

• Cross-Examining Crime

• Davy Crockett’s Almanack of Mystery, Adventure, and the Wild West

• Deadly Diversions

• Detectives Beyond Borders

• Dirty Books*

• Do Some Damage*

• Double O Section

• ‘Do You Write Under Your Own Name?’

• Euro Crime Blog (and its parent site, Euro Crime)

• For Winter Nights

• Glorious Trash*

• Gravetapping

• The Green Capsule*

• The Gumshoe Site

• Hardboiled Wonderland*

• His Futile Preoccupations ....

• In Reference to Murder

• In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel

• In So Many Words ...

• International Noir Fiction

• The Invisible Event

• It Is Purely My Opinion*

• Just a Guy That Likes to Read

• Kevin’s Corner*

• The Killing Times*

• Kingdom Books, Mysteries—Reviews*

• Lesa’s Book Critiques

• MBTB’s Mystery Book Blog*

• Men Reading Books*

• Morse, Lewis and Endeavour*

• Murder Is Everywhere

• Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan

• Mystery Fanfare

• Mystery*File Blog

• MysteryPeople

• Mystery Playground

• Mystery Scene Blog

• Mystery Tribune

• No More Grumpy Bookseller

• One Bite at a Time*

• Only Detect*

• The Passing Tramp

• Pattinase (home of “Friday’s Forgotten Books”)

• Permission to Kill

• Pretty Sinister Books

• Promoting Crime Fiction by Lizzie Hayes*

• Pulp Curry

• The Reader Is Warned*

• The Real Book Spy

• Reviewing the Evidence

• She Kills Lit*

• A Short Walk Down a Dark Street*

• Shotsmag Confidential (and its parent site, Shots)

• SleuthSayers

• Sons of Spade

• Speaking of Mysteries

• The Spy Command

• Stop, You’re Killing Me!

• The Strand Magazine Blog

• The Thrilling Detective Web Site

• The Trap of Solid Gold*

• Unlawful Acts*

• Up and Down These Mean Streets

• The Venetian Vase*

• Vintage Pop Fictions*

• Woody Haut’s Blog