Crime

Columnist Bob Sullivan covers Internet scams and consumer fraud for MSNBC.com, where he writes a column called The Red Tape Chronicles. His new book is about the hidden fees found in many phone, cable, credit card and other bills.

The fifth and final season of the acclaimed HBO drama The Wire has its season premiere Jan. 6. Fresh Air's TV critic has a preview.

The rapper MF Grimm, whose real name is Percy Carey, has written a graphic memoir entitled Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm. He spoke to Terry Gross about his story.

Poet and novelist Carol Muske-Dukes founded the University of Southern California's doctoral program in literature and creative writing; she's written three novels and seven collections of poetry, been a National Book Award finalist and received a Guggenheim fellowship.

Journalist Jeffrey Rosen is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine. His article titled "The Brain on the Stand: How neuroscience is transforming the legal system" appeared in the March 11 issue.

It's about an emerging field of study called "neurolaw," which combines neuroscience and the law. He writes about how evidence from brain-scanning technologies are being used in the courtroom to explain away criminal behavior.

The new novel by Vikram Chandra is about the mob in India.

In this week's issue of The New Yorker, Michael Specter writes about the murders of 13 journalists in Russia that have taken place since Vladimir Putin took office in 1999. Specter's article is "Kremlin, Inc: Why are Vladimir Putin's opponents dying?"

Film critic David Edelstein reviews The Departed, the new Martin Scorsese film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, and Jack Nicholson.

In Dexter, the new Showtime series starring Michael C. Hall of Six Feet Under fame, a forensics expert investigates serial killers by day and turns into one at night, stalking and murdering criminals.

Writer Ian Buruma's new book is about the 2004 death of a popular media personality at the hands of a Muslim radical. In writing Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance, Buruma found long-standing tensions between native-born Dutch and Muslim immigrants.

Actor Jeremy Sisto, best known for his role as Billy on HBO's Six Feet Under, is now starring in the new series Kidnapped on NBC. It premieres next Wednesday.

Miami Vice, the '80s TV sensation starring Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two vice squad detectives, has been given a makeover by its former executive producer. Michael Mann directs an updated version for the screen, starring Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. Our film critic has a review.

Author and museum director James Cameron died last Sunday at the age of 92. In 1930, an organized mob of more than 10,000 white men and women dragged Cameron and two other black teenage men from a jail cell in Marion, Ind. The mob mercilessly beat the three young men and lynched two — Cameron was spared. He recounted this experience in his 1984 memoir A Time of Terror and later founded the Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, which he modeled after the Jewish Holocaust museum in Israel. This interview originally aired on March 8, 1994.

C.C.H. Pounder is best known for her portrayal of Detective Claudette Wyms on the FX TV show The Shield. Recently, her character got a much deserved promotion to captain. Pounder was raised in Guyana, and schooled in Britain. The Shield is one of this year's recipients of the prestigious Peabody Award, being handed out Monday night.

Our film critic reviews Mission: Impossible III, starring Tom Cruise and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

The latest project from playwright David Mamet teams him up with Sean Ryan, who created the FX series The Shield. The pair's new show is The Unit, about a covert military unit.

A hardened young South African gang leader steals a woman's car -– then finds out her baby is in the back seat. So starts the South African film Tsotsi, which is up for an Academy Award for best foreign film.

Race and politics add to the tension of a detective's search for a kidnapped child in Freedomland, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Julianne Moore. The film's screenplay was written by Richard Price; the story is based on his novel of the same name.

The Veterinary Genetics Lab at UC-Davis has been called "the CSI of the four-legged world." The lab, directed by Beth Wictum, uses DNA samples from pets and other animals to help solve a variety of crimes.

Moises Naim, editor and publisher of Foreign Policy magazine. His new book is Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers and Copycats Are Hijacking the Global Economy. In it, Naim describes an international black market in which illegal arms, drugs and knockoff goods trade across the globe.