Where once crime fiction came from downtown Los Angeles, or the east end of London, these days the best are from Europe. “Traditionally, British readers have a horror of translated novels. Europeans have always bought up our crime writers, from PD James to Ian Rankin, but we’re a nation for whom the words ‘French exchange’ still have the power to instil terror. Yet sales of translated European crime fiction have increased fivefold in the past four years.”