Tatort Germany

Although George Bernard Shaw quipped that the Germans lack talent for two things: revolution and crime novels there is a long tradition of German crime fiction; it simply hasn't aligned itself with international trends. During the 1920s German-language writers dispensed with the detective and focused instead on criminals a trend that did not take hold in other countries until after 1945 by which time Germany had gone on to produce antidetective novels that were similarly ahead of their time. German crime fiction has thus always been a curious case; rather than follow the established rules of the genre it has always been interested in examining breaking and ultimately rewriting those rules. This book assembles leading international scholars to examine today's German crime fiction. It features innovative scholarly work that matches the innovativeness of the genre taking up the <I>Regionalkrimi</I>; crime fiction's reimagining and transforming of traditional identities; historical crime fiction that examines Germany's and Austria's conflicted twentieth-century past; and how the newly vibrant Austrian crime fiction ties in with and differentiates itself from its German counterpart.<BR><BR>CONTRIBUTORS: Angelika Baier Carol Anne Costabile-Heming Kyle Frackman Sascha Gerhards Heike Henderson Susanne C. Knittel Anita McChesney Traci S. O'Brien Jon Sherman Faye Stewart Magdalena Waligórska.<BR><BR>LYNN M. KUTCH is Associate Professor of German at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. TODD HERZOG is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of German Studies at the University of Cincinnati.