CrimeReads, created by Literary Hub, is a daily website dedicated to crime, mystery, and thrillers. It launched in 2018 as a channel of Literary Hub, with Dwyer Murphy and Molly Odintz as editors. As of December 2022, the website still provides links and articles to Literary Hub.
Although the name implies a focus on books, the website is generally publishes list of top books or movies among others and also focuses on evergreen articles covering movies, books and other related topics. Since the beginning, True Crime has been a big focus on the website both on podcast but also book and movie categories.
In terms of recent developments, Olivia Rutigliano joined the site as a staff writer in 2020 and became the site’s third editor in 2021.
About CrimeReads
In its About page, this is how website refers to its mission:
CrimeReads is a culture website for people who believe suspense is the essence of storytelling, questions are as important as answers, and nothing beats the thrill of a good book. It’s a single, trusted source where readers can find the best writing from the worlds of crime, mystery, and thrillers—a literary culture that’s more robust than ever, but diffuse.
Like its founding website, Literary Hub, CrimeReads is an organizing principle, curating and cultivating a daily slate of high-quality writing, a digital space where readers and writers can gather and engage. With the help of its editorial partners, CrimeReads is a site readers can rely on for smart, entertaining writing about the culture they love.
Each day, alongside original content and exclusive excerpts, CrimeReads is proud to showcase an editorial feature from one of its many partners from across the literary crime community, from publishers big and small, bookstores, non-profits, librarians, and more.
Website Look and Feel
As of December 2022, that’s how the front page of the website looks like:
Operations and Financing of CrimeReads
Just like Literary Hub, CrimeReads operation is being managed and financed by the publisher Grove Atlantic. Based on interviews with a group of contributing crime novelists and publishers, the website uses the following process as one of the means of generating contents: It asks publishers to provide essays or excerpts by the authors they represent and in exchange, the website might provide publicity.
Additionally, the website pays a network of freelance writers for occasional articles to write for its website.
About Dwyer Murphy
Dwyer Murphy is the author of An Honest Living, a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection, and the editor-in-chief of CrimeReads, Literary Hub’s crime fiction vertical and the world’s most popular destination for thriller readers. He practiced law at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York City, where he was a litigator, and served as editor of the Columbia Law Review. He was previously an Emerging Writer Fellow at the Center for Fiction.
