TV screens across Europe are more and more filled with detectives, investigators, police(wo)men coming from abroad. After a long-lasting prominence of US figures, the last decades have offered an increasing visibility to characters coming from the UK, the Nordic regions of Scandinavia, the major continental markets as France, Germany, Spain and Italy, the Mediterranean regions, the Eastern and Central European countries, and so on. European crime narratives are complex objects: national, and global, and often glocal. Their popularity and circulation in European markets brings cultural diversity and puts audiences in touch with other not-so-far yet distinct cultures, while also – sometimes – laying ground for the development of a truly transnational, cross-European, shared popular culture. The special issue of Cinéma & Cie presents some results of the research carried out by Horizon 2020 project DETECt – Detecting Transcultural Identity in Contemporary Popular Crime Narratives, and includes a wide range of case histories, theoretical approaches, methodological frameworks.