Urban Spaces and Heterotopia in Modern Mediterranean Crime Fiction

This contribution aims at investigating some specificities of the Mediterranean crime fiction set in urban landscapes. The analysis starts from a series of geocritical considerations on urban spaces reflected in certain narrative contexts related to the resolution of a mystery and/or the reconstruction of a truth that seems to be elusive. In this sense, the urban space becomes an active force that disseminates traces and concrete clues within the texts, influencing the plot and reader expectations. It is therefore a semiotic construction, i.e. a space that, depending on its distribution and the way it is represented, contributes in essential terms to the development of certain specific narrative dynamics.