This book is the first monograph in English that comprehensively
examines the ways in which Italian historical crime novels, TV series,
and films have become a means to intervene in the social and political
changes of the country. This study explores the ways in which fictional
representations of the past mirror contemporaneous anxieties within
Italian society in the work of writers such as Leonardo Sciascia, Andrea
Camilleri, Carlo Lucarelli, Francesco Guccini, Loriano Macchiavelli,
Marcello Fois, Maurizio De Giovanni, and Giancarlo De Cataldo; film
directors such as Elio Petri, Pietro Germi, Michele Placido, and Damiano
Damiani; and TV series such as the "Commissario De Luca" series, the
"Commissario Nardone" series, and "Romanzo criminale-The series."
Providing the most wide-ranging examination of this sub-genre in Italy,
Barbara Pezzotti places works set in the Risorgimento, WWII, and the
Years of Lead in the larger social and political context of contemporary
Italy.