CRIMINAL BRIEF IN REVIEW

by James Lincoln Warren

New Year’s Eve is always a time for reflection.

Criminal Brief was launched on May 7, 2007. We’ve been going strong now for eight months. I frankly have no idea how successful we’ve been in our avowed purpose of advocating short crime fiction, but I can state with satisfaction that our readership has certainly expanded, and so assume we’ve made a dent. That first month we had a total of 1185 visitors to the site. By year’s end, we’ve had over 16,000 visitors from more than 25 different countries. Not much considering the billions of web surfers in the world, perhaps, but far beyond my wildest expectations–by at least an order of magnitude.

We’ve covered a lot of territory, topic-wise, but I think we’ve been true to our mission. Here’s a list of some of my favorite columns, one for each month:

Tuesday, May 22: High-Heeled Gumshoe: LEOPARD SHOES by Melodie Johnson Howe

Wednesday, June 27: Tune It Or Die!: SING A SONG OF SIX-GUNS by Robert Lopresti

Friday, July 27: Bandersnatches: LISTENING TO POE by Steven Steinbock

Thursday, August 9: Femme Fatale: BAD GOOD GUYS by Deborah Elliott-Upton

Monday, September 24: The Scribbler: WOLPERTINGER; Or, The Modern Epimetheus by James Lincoln Warren

Saturday, October 20: New York Minute: AS SEEN ON CNN by Angela Zeman

Sunday, November 18: The A.D.D. Detective: BLURB! (’scuse me) by Leigh Lundin

Tuesday, December 25: High-Heeled Gumshoe: EMILY DICKINSON and CHRISTMAS by Melodie Johnson Howe

Gentle Readers are also directed to EVERY SINGLE COLUMN in the Mystery Masterclass category. I would also like to invite our regular readers to tell us what their own favorite Criminal Brief moments of the past year were.

So crack open the champers, slap a cardboard party hat on your head, toss a streamer or two, and then don’t worry about getting a little misty as you croon along to “Auld Lang Syne”1 with your friends and relations.

That’s what I’m going to do.

And then, just after midnight, join me in a toast to all our CB contributors for making this modest web log a such a success, and then to mystery short story writers everywhere, and especially to Leigh, Deborah, Rob, Melodie, Steve, Angela, and John. They have given of themselves entirely for the sake of love, which I think is the best thing you can say of anyone. You guys are the best.

Happy New Year, everybody.

1. Very recently, I was asked exactly what “Auld Lang Syne” means. It’s Scots dialect, of course, from a poem by Robert Burns–“Auld” = “Old”; “Lang” = “Long”; “Syne” = “Since”; taken together, “for auld lang syne” more or less means “for old times’ sake.” [↩]