Including interviews with key directors including Mike Hodges and Donald Cammel, this book analyzes films such as Shallow Grave, Brighton Rock and The Ladykillers to present the first substantial study of British cinema's most neglected genre.

List if illustrations, Notes on contributors, Acknowledgements, Chapter 1: Parole overdue: releasing the British crime film into the critical community, Chapter 2: The censors and British gangland, 1913–1990, Chapter 3: Spin a dark web, Chapter 4: Outrage: No Orchids for Miss Blandish, Chapter 5: Men, women and money: masculinity in crisis in the British professional crime film 1946–1965, Chapter 6: The higher heel: women and the post-war British crime film, Chapter 7: The emergence of the British tough guy: Stanley Baker, masculinity and the crime thriller, Chapter 8: Ordinary people: 'New Wave' realism and the British crime film 1959–1963, Chapter 9: Performance: interview with Donald Cammell, Chapter 10: Mike Hodges discusses Get Carter with the NFT audience, 23 September 1997, Chapter 11: A revenger's tragedy – Get Carter, Chapter 12: Dog eat dog: The Squeeze and the Sweeney films, Chapter 13: Space in the British crime film, Chapter 14: Allegorising the nation: British gangster films of the 1980s, Chapter 15: From underworld to underclass: crime and British cinema in the 1990s, A filmography of British underworld films, 1939–1997, Index