The Best UK Crime Fiction Blogs

I received a pleasant message yesterday to tell me that this blog features on a new list of 'the top 30 UK Crime Fiction Blogs' and in fact it's number 4 on the list

The top ten blogs on the list are:

1. Crime Fiction Lover

2. Crimespree Magazine

3. The CWA website

4. Do You Write Under Your Own Name?

5. Shots

6. The Telegraph - Crime Fiction

7. Damppebbles

8. Crime Book Junkie

9. Crime Time

10. Euro Crime.

Nice company to be in! I'm not entirely sure how these things are measured - apparently various criteria are taken into account - but it's a very gratifying surprise. So is the fact that, so far this month, there have been more than 65,000 page views. I think this may be the highest figure ever. I don't check these figures regularly, but I can't recall a higher number. Why the blog, after all the years, is doing quite so well at present, is something that again I'm far from clear about. Rather than analyse it too much, I'm happy to see that people still seem to be enjoying what I do. Rest assured, I'll continue to do it for as long as I keep enjoying it.

I've been asked from time to time about which crime fiction blogs I enjoy most. It's a selective list, because I don't have a lot of time to explore the internet randomly, so I'm sure I miss plenty of good stuff. But here are some excellent blogs, well worth your attention. They all have the important ingredient of a pleasant personality, something that makes a big difference, in my opinion. And I list them in no particular order, not least because I've probably missed out some I meant to include, for instance those run by the people who have kindly taken part in my various blog tours over the years. And since starting work on this post, I've been reading some very interesting material on the Collecting Christie blog, which is more specialised than those mentioned below, but very well-researched. If you take a look at these for starters, you won't go far wrong.

UK

The Invisible Event (Jim Noy)

Cross Examining Crime (Kate Jackson)

The Venetian Vase (Steven Powell)

In Search of the Classic Mystery (Steve Barge)

A Reading Life (Chrissie Poulson)

Clothes in Books (Moira Redmond)

France

At the Villa Rose (Xavier Lechard)

Italy

Death Can Read (Pietro de Palma)

Spain

A Crime is Afoot (Jose Ignacio Escribano)

US etc,

Pretty Sinister Books (John Norris)

The Rap Sheet (Jeff Kingston Pierce)

The Bunburyist (Elizabeth Foxwell)

Mystery*File (various)

Mysteries Ahoy!

The Grandest Game in the World (Nick Fuller)

Beneath the Stains of Time