Another Day, Another €40,000

At some point today, barring the complete collapse of the interweb, the statcounter at the bottom of this page will hit the 40,000 mark, which as far as we know means that Crime Always Pays has had 40,000 page impressions since the day it kicked off last April, when it was launched to coincide with the publication by Hag’s Head Press of our humble offering, THE BIG O. A relatively modest achievement, we’re sure you’ll agree, but that’s no reason not to thank everyone who has ever visited CAP Towers, even if it was just to blow raspberries (Ray Banks, we know where you live).
  We’d also like to thank those who have contributed to the blog in some shape or form, particularly reviewer par excellence Claire Coughlan and Chico ‘Chicovich’ Morientes, who has played a huge part in maintaining the blog when the Grand Vizier was indisposed (i.e., disporting himself shamelessly in sunnier climes). We’d also like to thank contributors who have come on board in recent weeks under the ‘Mi Casa, Su Casa’ banner, especially as they are quality writers – Adrian McKinty, KT McCaffrey, Brian McGilloway and Bernd Kochanowski, take a bow.
  Meanwhile, the statcounter would very probably be closer to 400 page impressions than 40,000 if it wasn’t for the generous support of the network of crime and mystery fiction blogs and websites out there. In no particular order, we’d like to thank The Rap Sheet, It’s A Crime!, Euro Crime, Petrona, Detectives Beyond Borders, International Crime, Pulp Pusher, Shots Magazine, International Noir, Reviewing the Evidence, AustCrimeFiction, the Crime Carnival crew, Crime Scraps, Spinetingler Magazine, CrimeSpree Magazine, the Book Witch and Cormac Millar. Last but by no means least, it’s a humble hat-tip to Critical Mick, the original and the best Irish crime fiction web resource. If we’ve left anyone out, we’re very sorry; rest assured we will be punishing the elves for their sloth forthwith.
  This is a wonderful time to be Irish and writing about crime fiction. In the first six months of 2008 alone, we will see new novels from John Connolly, Ken Bruen, Aifric Campbell, Declan Hughes, DB Shan, Sam Millar, KT McCaffrey, Derek Landy, David Park, Ronan O’Brien, Brian McGilloway, Colin Bateman, Eoin Colfer, Siobhan Dowd and Benjamin Black (John McFetridge, Liam Durcan, Michael Haskins and Tony Black, meanwhile, qualify under FIFA’s ‘grandparent’ ruling). In addition to those names, we’ve had published in the last six months novels by Ronan Bennett, Ingrid Black, Sylvester Young, Julie Parsons, John Creed, Cora Harrison, Adrian McKinty, Garbhan Downey, Paul Charles, Eoin McNamee, Neville Thompson, Tana French, Andrew Nugent, Sean Moncrieff, Patricia Rainsford and Arlene Hunt.
  When we began Crime Always Pays, we wondered where all the material would come from. Today we have no idea where the time will come from to do justice to all the quality Irish crime fiction that’s out there. Long may you all run.