Crime

Many of Spencer's novels feature a turning point -- a dreadful, unplanned act committed by one of the characters. In his latest book, Man in the Woods, a carpenter accidentally kills a man, which leads him to question himself and his relationship with God.

Anton Corbijn's paranoid thriller stars George Clooney as an anonymous international assassin constantly on the run. Critic David Edelstein says the spare movie "cast a spell" over the audience -- as they entered the mind of a man with no past or future.

The new Showtime series stars Laura Linney as a wife and mother battling cancer. Critic David Bianculli says the leads (Oliver Platt among them) are just fine, but the subsidiary characters could use a second look. Also back for another season on Showtime: Weeds, which makes The Big C look limp by comparison.

The Vidocq Society is a Philadelphia-based group of criminologists and forensic experts; they gather together once a month to solve cold cases. Writer Michael Capuzzo explains what it was like to shadow the crime-fighters in The Murder Room.

Todd Solondz latest deadpan comedy, Life During Wartime, stars Shirley Henderson, Ally Sheedy and Allison Janney as three sisters struggling to find meaning in a bleak world filled with David Lynchian grotesques. Critic David Edelstein says it's the "feel-bad movie of the year.

Whitman founded the FBI's Art Crime Team and has tracked down more than $225 million worth of stolen art and cultural property -- including a $36 million self-portrait by Rembrandt. Whitman describes the heists in his new memoir, Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures.

Dorothy Sayers' genteelly dapper detective, portrayed by Ian Carmichael in the '70s BBC miniseries, returns in a newly released DVD set. Critic John Powers reviews the first two episodes of a murder-mystery collection whose success on American TV paved the way for a PBS's popular Mystery franchise.

Philadelphia Daily News reporters Barbara Laker and Wender Ruderman received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for the 10-month series "Tainted Justice." Their reporting on an allegedly crooked police narcotics squad resulted in the review of hundreds of criminal cases -- and started an FBI investigation into one of the Philadelphia police's elite units.

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tenn. For the next two months, the man who shot him, James Earl Ray, was able to evade the FBI during a massive worldwide manhunt. Writer Hampton Sides traces the movements of both King and Ray in his new book, Hellhound on His Trail.

By 16, Frank Meeink had become one of the most well-known skinhead gang leaders on the East Coast. His defection from the white supremacy movement is the subject of his memoir, Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead.

Starting tonight on the FX cable network, Deadwood star Timothy Olyphant is back playing another man with a badge -- this time in Justified, a modern-day Western based on stories by Elmore Leonard. TV critic David Bianculli review the new series for Fresh Air.

Attorney General Eric Holder has come under fire, mostly from the Republican side of the aisle, for the decision to try Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court — and for the handling of "underwear bomber" Umar Abdulmutallab after his arrest. New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer looks at growing partisan differences about national security.

Attorney David Dow has spent his career representing inmates who have been sentenced to death. Despite his efforts, many of his clients have been executed — and most of them were guilty. In his new memoir, The Autobiography of an Execution, Dow details what it's like to become emotionally involved with the people living on death row.

Stanley Tucci may be a star, but he's still got the protean gifts of a great character actor: He can transform himself for each new role he brings to the screen. You've seen him as a flamboyant art director in The Devil Wears Prada, a stereotypical Italian gangster in The Road To Perdition, a conniving politico in Swing Vote, the impish Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream and a neurotic lover in Deconstructing Harry. And if a career like that suggests a certain versatility, Tucci's most recent films particularly highlight his ability to inhabit a range of personalities.

Critic David Edelstein says the Lord of the Rings director has violated Alice Sebold's celebrated novel with an adaptation marked by tawdry sentimentality and cheap mysticism.

Despite the economic recession — or perhaps because of it — the kidnapping business is booming. In his recent New York Times Magazine article, journalist Nicholas Schmidle explores the international hostage market and its impact on workers.

Martin Scorcese said of Sam Fuller's work, "If you don't like the films of Sam Fuller, then you just don't like cinema." The maverick screenwriter and director died in 1997, but a new 7-disc selection of his work embodies what's most enjoyable and enduring about pulp fiction.

AMC's newest miniseries is an ill-advised attempt at a reboot of the cult-hit '60s spy series: A man known as Six (Jim Caviezel) finds himself trapped in a strange desert village, dogged b y a mysterious watcher (Ian McKellen's elusive Two). Critic David Bianculli says that despite McKellen's captivating performance, the remake has none of the curious genius of the original.

Working for Japan's Yomiuri Shinbone newspaper, reporter Jake Adelstein uncovered a world unknown to many of the Japanese public, let alone to foreigners: the world of organized crime. He details its landscape -- and the dangers of covering it -- in a new memoir.