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 Waligórska. 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.

Introduction - Lynn M. Kutch and Todd HerzogVor Ort: The Functions and Early Roots of German Regional Crime - Kyle FrackmanKrimi Quo Vadis: Literary and Televised Trends in the German Crime Genre - Sascha GerhardsPlurality and Alterity in wolf Haas's Detective Brenner Mysteries - Jon ShermanThe Case of the Austrian Regional Crime Novel - Anita McChesney"Darkness at the Beginning": The Holocaust in Contemporary German Crime Fiction - Magdalena WaligórskaCase Histories: The Lagacy of Nazi Euthanasia in Recent German Heimatkrimis - Susanne C. Knittel"Der Fall Loest": A Case Study of Crime Stories and the Public Sphere in the GDR - Carol Anne Costabile-HemingWhat's in Your Bag?: "Freudian Crimes" and Austria's Nazi Past in Eva Rossmann's Freudsche Verbrechen - Traci S. O'BrienLayered Deviance: Intersexuality in Contemporary German Crime Fiction - Angelika BaierGirls in the Gay Bar: Performing and Policing Identity in Crime Fiction - Faye StewartEva Rossmann's Culinary Mysteries - Heike HendersonWorks CitedIndex