This book represents the first extended consideration of contemporary crime fiction as a European phenomenon. Understanding crime fiction in its broadest sense, as a transmedia practice, and offering unique insights into this practice in specific European countries and as a genuinely transcontinental endeavour, this book argues that the distinctiveness of the form can be found in its related historical and political inquiries. It asks how the genre’s excavation of Europe’s history of violence and protest in the twentieth century is informed by contemporary political questions. It also considers how the genre’s progressive reimagining of new identities forged at the crossroads of ethnicity, gender, and sexuality is offset by its bleaker assessment of the corrosive effects of entrenched social inequalities, political corruption, and state violence. The result is a rich, vibrant collection that shows how crime fiction can help us better understand the complex relationship between Europe’s past, present, and future.
Seven chapters are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Author(s): Monica Dall'Asta, Jacques Migozzi, Federico Pagello, Andrew Pepper
Series: Crime Files
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 298
City: Cham
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Chapter 1: Introduction
The Internationalization of European Crime Fiction
European Crime Fiction as Political Critique
History and Trauma
Europe: Past, Present, Future
Contemporary European Crime Fiction: Representing History and Politics
Works Cited
Part I: Contemporary European Crime Narratives about World War I and World War II
Chapter 2: Where’s the Empire? Loss, Geopolitical Agency and Imperial Longing in Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs Series
The War “Is Not Over When It Ends”: Mobilizing the Dead and the Wounded
Maisie and the Imagined Community: “After All, Your Country Needs You”
Conclusion: The Absent and Present Empire
Works Cited
Chapter 3: The Fingerprints of Fascism: Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther Novels, Nazi Noir, and the Continuing Presence of the Past
Nazism: A Collective Cultural Legacy
Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther Novels
Crime Writing as Didactic/Memorial Fiction
Crime Fiction and the Nazi Past
Conclusion: A European Stain
Works Cited
Chapter 4: Noir Bearing Gifts: The Greek Shoah and Its Memory in Philip Kerr’s Greeks Bearing Gifts
The Historical Context: The Jewish Community of Thessaloniki and the Memory of the Greek Shoah
Greeks Bearing Gifts
Conclusion
Works Cited
Chapter 5: Confronting Memories: The Case of Babylon Berlin
Berlin as a Production Site and Narrative Cityscape
Detecting Babylon’s Locations
Like a Weimar Film
Babylon and Its Narrative Complexity
Gereon Rath and the Serialization of the Traumatic Experience
Charlotte Ritter: A Police Flapper of the Weimar Urban Modernity
Conclusion: Remediating European Memories
Works Cited
Part II: Contemporary European Crime Narratives about the Post-World War II Era
Chapter 6: Crime for a Higher Cause: The Baader Meinhof Complex and The Left Wing Gang
Terrorism and Media
RAF and the Dark Heritage
Internationalization of German Heritage
Hollywood Genres
The Left Wing Gang: “It is all about politics”
“We Are Not Rote Armee Fraktion”
Rehearsal and Performance
Conclusion
Works Cited
Chapter 7: No Future and Spectrality in David Peace’s Red Riding Quartet
From 1974 to Year Zero
UK Decay
Future Is Written
Works Cited
Chapter 8: The Trails of a Counter-Narrative: The Representation of the Years of Lead in Loriano Macchiavelli’s Sarti Antonio Series
Historical Perspectives: Anni di Piombo, Italian Narrative and Loriano Macchiavelli
Living in an Age of Terrorism: The Fictionalization of Facts in the Sarti Series
Unconventional Characters: The Importance of Irony
Towards the Years of Noir
Works Cited
Chapter 9: Didier Daeninckx, Le roman noir de l’Histoire (2019): Dismantling the Tale of French History through Disseminated Micro-Histories
Noir Novel, Crime Fiction and Journalistic Counter-Inquiry
(Re)montage, millefeuille and Rejects: A New Form of Fragmented History
A “political memory” to Undermine the National Tale
Conclusion
Works Cited
Chapter 10: Revisioning the Past to Build the Democratic Future: The Cases of Italian and Spanish Crime Fiction
Works Cited
Part III: Contemporary European Crime Narratives about the Post-1989 Era
Chapter 11: How Does Crime Fiction ‘talk politics’? Figures of Political Action in Contemporary French Crime Writing
Politics in Crime Fiction: From Militants to Situations
Political Militancy as a Background Element
Internationalizing Political Action
Political Subjectivities and Engagements
Involuntary and Tragic Commitments
A Place of Disarray
Conclusion: Towards a Typology of Contemporary Political Figures and Actions
Works Cited
Chapter 12: Shadow Economies: The Financial Crisis and European TV Crime Series
The Financial Crisis and the Crisis of Representation
Follow the Money
Bad Banks
Conclusion
Works Cited
Chapter 13: A ‘Bottom-Up’ Approach to Transcultural Identities: Petra and Women Detectives in Italian TV Crime Drama
Theoretical Framework and Key Concepts
Polyphonic Adaptation as Mediated Transcultural Encounter: Petra’s Journey from Barcelona to Genoa
Petra as Feminist Palimpsest
Conclusion
Works Cited
Chapter 14: The Excavation of History and the Quest for Identity in Contemporary Polish Crime Fiction
Works Cited
Chapter 15: Euroscapes: Space, Place, and Multi-Level Governance in European Television Crime Series
The Multi-Level Governance Model
Crime Narratives as European Storyworlds or Conceptual Maps
The Poetics of Space and Place in European Crime Series
Examples of European Television Crime Series
Conclusion: Cohesion Through Doubt?
Works Cited
Index
