Introduction

The introduction offers a way of reading contemporary European crime fiction that pays attention to the national crime fiction traditions of discreet European countries and explores the transcultural, transnational elements of this emerging form. Our expansive understanding of this form is organized around three central aspects: firstly, the internationalization of European crime fiction as a driver of narrative ‘glocalization’; secondly, the complex forms of political engagement at work in this body of work, where the progressive articulation of new identities forged at the crossroads of ethnicity, gender and sexuality is set against insights into political corruption, racism and state violence; and thirdly, an emphasis on the centrality of historical recovery where the excavation and interrogation of traumatic histories is understood as a reflection on present circumstances.