The articles gathered in this Focus on European Crime Fiction have been written in the context of the interuniversity EU-funded DETECt project. DETECt – or Detecting Transcultural Identity in European Popular Crime Narratives – addresses the formation of European cultural identity as a continuing process of transformation fostered by the mobility of people, products and representations across the continent. Because of the extraordinary mobility of its products, popular culture plays a decisive role in circulating representations that constitute a shared cultural asset for large sectors of European society. A collaborative network of 19 academic and non-academic partners, with the University of Bologna as project leader, DETECt has been researching issues of European identity formation since 1989 as reflected, as well as shaped and reshaped, by crime fiction in various media, ranging from traditional print media to contemporary digital media. Combining the three perspectives of production, distribution and reception of crime fiction related works, DETECt has paid great attention to crossing bridges between academic research and commercial as well as industrial initiatives in the field. The articles that follow offer a brief but representative overview of the work that has been accomplished. Further details can be found on the project’s portal site: https://www.detect-project.eu/

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