New essays by leading scholars examining today's vibrant and innovative German crime fiction, along with its historical background. 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. Duringthe 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 Regionalkrimi;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. 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 Waligorska. Lynn M. Kutch is Professor of German at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. Todd Herzog is Professor and Head of the Department of German Studies at the University of Cincinnati.

About the Author
KYLE FRACKMAN is Associate Professor of German & Scandinavian Studies at the University of British Columbia. Sascha Andreas Gerhards is a Visiting Assistant Professor of German at Wittenberg University in Springfield, OH

Reviews
Opens up both the foreign view of German-language crime literature and the cultural self-descriptions to which [that literature] gives rise. . . . [Also] contains contributions on crime literature 'by women for women,' on feminist crime literature . . . . -- Nele Hoffmann * ARBITRIUM *
[C]omprehensive and interesting analysis. . . . For readers in Germany and Austria as well the essays in Tatort Germany should be of great interest [because it allows one] to learn how the German-language detective novel is perceived in the US. I recommend Tatort Germany as an enrichment of any collection of secondary literature on the genre. * CRIMEMAG *
This volume offers a rich insight into contemporary German-language crime fiction and its emerging trends. . . . [T]he extensive analysis of currently untranslated texts--with quotations in English--performs an important function, too, especially as it serves to encourage more translations of German-language crime novels in future. * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *
The volume's focus on contemporary trends in German-language crime fiction offers a welcome corrective to [the widespread lack of knowledge of German-language crime fiction in the English-speaking world], as does its exploration of the 'peculiarly German twists' of the genre in its three sections on place, history, and identity. . . . [R]ich and diverse . . . highly recommended for researchers of genre fiction, whether working in German Studies or beyond: quotations are provided in German and English, and an extensive bibliography[y] direct[s] readers to resources in both languages. . . . -- Katharina Hall * MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW *
[C]onvincingly make[s] a case for the serious scholarly study of your favorite guilty pleasure: those prolific German crime novels that are, in their own idiosyncratic way, every bit as good as their English and Swedish counterparts. By placing twenty-first century German crime fiction into its historical, international and theoretical contexts, Kutch and Herzog-and the volume's contributors-provide a fascinating broader explanation of a current literary phenomenon. -- Rob McFarland * WOMEN IN GERMAN NEWSLETTER *
That crime fiction written in German represents a 'curious case' has been established before, but a more wide-reaching case can indeed be made for contemporary German-language crime fiction, and the editors and contributors of this volume succeed in doing so quite admirably. -- Thomas Kniesche * JOURNAL OF AUSTRIAN STUDIES *



Book Information
ISBN 9781571135711
Author Lynn M. Kutch
Format Hardback
Page Count 272
Imprint Camden House Inc
Publisher Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Weight(grams) 1g