Peripheral Locations in European TV Crime Series

The book examines the strategic use of what is defined as “peripheral locations” in contemporary European television crime dramas, exploring how these settings contribute to the genre's aesthetic, narrative, and industrial dimensions. This study, which emerges from the H2020 “DETECt” research project, offers a comprehensive analysis of the increasing shift of crime serial dramas from traditional urban centres to geographically and culturally marginal locations across Europe. By introducing the concept of “double marginality”, wherein peripheral locations function both as distant, less conventional production sites and as representations of sociocultural and economic fringes within their respective national contexts, the authors investigate how such locations, often situated at the intersection of social, economic, and cultural peripheries, serve as sites for negotiating contemporary European identities and anxieties. The study identifies a growing trend in European crime dramas that use peripheral locations to create a distinctive, translocal “aesthetics of peripherality”, fostering transnational appeal in an era of "peak television". The book highlights productive, stylistic and narrative convergences that contribute to a broader transcultural audiovisual geography by drawing comparisons across various European regions (including Nordic, Mediterranean, and Eastern Europe) and crime subgenres (like Arctic, Country and Brit Noir). It includes readings of crime series such as “Shetland”, “Bitter Daisies”, “Petra”, “Trom”, “Pagan Peak”, and “The Border”, but presents such representative cases within broader tendencies on the European TV market, including challenges from streaming services, the influence of Nordic Noir, and changes within the cognitive geography of Europe. Through an interdisciplinary approach that combines production studies, location studies, and textual analysis, the book provides valuable insights into how contemporary crime narratives reflect and reshape perceptions of Europe’s borderscapes and identities.