Happy Birthday, Baby!

It was three years ago last week that we sent The Rap Sheet out onto the blogosphere on its own steam. And, wow: baby done good! As Rap Sheet editor J. Kingston Pierce noted on Friday:

It was in May 2006 that we took a chance and cut The Rap Sheet loose from its great mothership, January Magazine. We’ve been trying to fly on our own ever since, with varying degrees of success. It’s amazing to me, that not only have we racked up more than 2,800 posts on this page, but The Rap Sheet has exceeded 500,000 page views. Neither of those things seemed possible three springs ago.

The Rap Sheet started as a crime fiction-focused column here on January Magazine back in early 1999. (Which, when I think about it, actually makes this The Rap Sheet’s 10th anniversary!)

From the beginning, The Rap Sheet was fueled largely by Pierce’s knowledge and passion and while I happily lap up the occasional Rap Sheet kudo and while I do on occasion contribute to The Rap Sheet, there’s really never been any confusion about whose energy has created that amazing and tightly focused publication.

In a relatively short time, The Rap Sheet has covered a lot of ground and racked up an impressive list of accomplishments:

Over the last twelvemonth, The Rap Sheet has introduced or significantly expanded several signature features, including our series about the “25 Best TV Crime Drama Openers,” our rundown of unjustly forgotten “Books You Have to Read,” our authors’ essays on how and why they wrote their latest novels (“The Story Behind the Story”), and our seemingly never-ending exposure of copycat book covers. We’ve welcomed a number of guest bloggers into the fold, among them Gary Phillips, Patrick Lennon, Declan Burke, and Jason Starr, all of whom have since become irregular contributors. We have put together interviews with Reed Farrel Coleman, Chelsea Cain, Max Allan Collins, Craig McDonald, Martin Edwards, Giancarlo De Cataldo, Ace Atkins, Dennis Lehane, Tess Gerritsen, Andrew Taylor, Jeremy Duns, and so many others. We’ve begun holding contests to win free copies of new crime novels, and even hosted a competition whereby readers could win three free passes to CrimeFest, held earlier this month in Bristol, England. And not long ago, I debuted a companion blog, Killer Covers, that focuses on classic book jacket art.

Obviously, if you love crime fiction and you’ve not been making The Rap Sheet a regular stop, you’re clearly missing out.

Congratulations Pierce and team on three richly entertaining years!