Crime

A native of Mississippi, Barry Hannah has been writing for over thirty years - short stories, and novels set in the South. His writing is described as intensely personal, frenetic and comic. Truman Capote once called him the maddest writer in the USA His first book, the autobiographical novel Geronimo Rex (published in 1972) won the William Faulkner Prize for writing. He followed that with Airships, a collection of short stories now considered a classic.

His new film Memento, is about a man who is unable to make new memories since the violent murder of his wife. Now without a short term memory, he seeks to avenge her death. The movie stars Guy Pearce, with Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano. The script for Memento was based on a short story written by Johnathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan's brother. Memento is Christopher Nolan's second feature film; his first was the critically acclaimed 1998 film Following.

Joseph Hallinan been writing about the criminal-justice system for about a decade. For his new book, Going Up the River: Travels in Prison Nation he looks at the consequences of our country's prison boom. The prison-industrial complex is our nations biggest growth industry. Hallinan currently writes for The Wall Street Journal.

Former Chicago policewoman Gina Gallo. While she was part of the force, she also wrote about her work in columns for NYCop online magazine and Blue Murders online magazine. They were collected in the book Crime Scenes (Blue Murder Press). She has a new memoir, Armed & Dangerous: Memoirs of a Chicago Policewoman

Film critic Henry Sheehan reviews the new film "Hannibal" starring Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore.

Humanitarian aid worker Kenneth Gluck. He was working with Doctors Without Borders in Chechnya when he was kidnapped and held for 26 days. He was released on February 3rd. Gluck still isn't sure who kidnapped him or who freed him. It could have been Chechen gangs, who have seized other humanitarian workers. Or it could have been Russian authorities who staged the abduction for propaganda purposes. The Russians claimed credit for freeing him.

Tom Fontana of HBO's, Oz, the realistic drama about life in an experimental unit of a maximum security prison. Fontana also created Homicide: Life on the Street and the 1980s drama set in a city hospital, St. Elsewhere.

Literary forensics expert Don Foster. Named the first literary detective of all time, he uncovered the identity of Joe Klein as the Anonymous writer of 1996’s “Primary Colors”. His new book is “Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous” (Henry Holt, Inc.) which details the techniques he uses to identify writers behind anonymous books and documents. He teaches English at Vassar College.

Working cop and writer Richard Rosenthal. For 20 years, Rosenthal was a detective for the New York Police Department where he dealt with homicide, narcotics, and armed robbery. Now he is the chief of Police in a small village on Cape Cod. He’ll talk about the differences between the two kinds of police work. Rosenthal is the author of two books about police work called Sky Cops and K-9 Cops. He also wrote a novel called The Murder of Old Comrades. His new book, Rookie Cop(Leapfrog Press), is a memoir about his time undercover in the Jewish Defense League.

Journalists Monica Yant Kinney and Tom Ginsberg of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The two covered the protests during the Republican National Convention two weeks ago. They’ll pick up the story since the convention, and discuss the lawsuits filed against the city on behalf of the protesters. (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES INTO THE SECOND HALF OF THE SHOW)

Forensic entomologist M. Lee Goff is the author of the new book “A Fly for the Prosecution: How Insect Evidence Helps Solve Crimes” (Harvard University Press). Goff examines the insect life that inhabits a decomposing corpse, to understand when a person died and other circumstances of death. (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES THRU THE END OF THE SHOW).

Contributing editor for Vanity Fair David Margolick. In his new book “Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Café Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights” (Running Press), Margolick traces the history and impact of the song “Strange Fruit,” a ballad about lynchings which became Billie Holiday’s signature song. It was written by a Jewish school teacher who was inspired to write the song after seeing a newspaper photograph of a lynching.

Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg discusses the word hacker.

Tens of thousands of African-American men, women, and children were lynched by mobs in the United States between 1882 and 1968. Some of these lynchings were photographed, and the photos were saved as souvenirs, and were even sometimes used as postcards. Antique dealer James Allen came across these disturbing images and began to collect them. His collection is currently on display at the New York Historical Society. The book about Allen’s collection, called “Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America” (Twin Palms Publishers) was published earlier this year.

The 84 year-old former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet flew home to Chile today, after the British Home Secretary ruled against extraditing him to Spain where he would have faced trial for torture and human rights violations. He was found mentally unfit to stand trial. Pinochet had been under house arrest In England for over a year, as legal efforts were made to hold him accountable for the thousands of people who died or disappeared during his 17-year regime In Chile. We talk with Peter Kornbluh, ("corn-blue") Senior Analyst at the National Security Archive.

Attorneys Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. They co-founded the Innocence Project, dedicated to freeing innocent people from jail using DNA tests to do so. Barry Scheck is best known for his DNA analysis on the OJ Simpson defense team. They've collaborated on a new book (along with columnist Jim Dwyer) about their efforts, "Actual Innocence: Five Days to Execution, and Other Dispatches From the Wrongly Convicted." (Doubleday).

Book Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction by historian Linda Gordon (Harvard Press).

We remember crime novelist George V. Higgins. He was found dead at his home on Saturday, apparently of natural causes. He was 59. He was best known for his best seller, "Friends of Eddie Coyle," published in 1972. (REBROADCAST from 9/30/1986)

Pierre-Richard Prosper served as a prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal in Rwanda. In 1994, more than a half-million Rwandans were killed in a massacre. Last year, he successfully prosecuted the former Mayor of Taba, Rwanda for genocide. He also convicted the former official on rape charges. This is the first time rape has been recognized as a instrument of genocide. Prosper is an American attorney who worked for the Justice Department and for the Los Angeles County D.A.'s office.

Executive director Richard Feldman of the American Shooting Sports Council which represents gun manufacturers.