Introduction -- Social crisis, modernization, and the emergence of the "novela negra" in Mexico and Spain -- Reading and (re) writing culture: subversion of models, models of subversion -- "Poisonville" reincarnated: modernization, metropolis and spaces of self-representation -- Memories of underdevelopment: resurrecting revolution -- Crimes against culture: anti-imperialism in Taibo and Vázquez Montalbán