Trials

David Mamet, the writer and director of the new HBO movie Phil Spector starring Al Pacino and Helen Mirren, includes a disclaimer at the beginning of the film: While the movie might be based on the controversial music producer, "This is a work of fiction. It's not 'based on a true story.'

Robert Redford's historical drama focuses on the months after President Lincoln was assassinated — and on Mary Surratt, the woman alleged to have aided the plotters. Critic David Edelstein says it's a dramatized civil-liberties lecture, both transparent and exaggerated.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "Rough Justice" (Harper Collins) by Lisa Scottoline.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the Canadian author's new crime novel "Alias Grace," published by Doubleday.

Fresh Air film critic John Power reviews the movie version of John Grisham's novel, "A Time To Kill."

Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews "Body of Evidence," the new sex-fueled courtroom drama starring Madonna and William DeFoe.

Critic Maureen Corrigan says the best she can say about Barnes's "Porcupine," about deposed communist leaders on trial in Eastern Europe, is that she "didn't not like it."

Book Critic John Leonard reviews Wasted, an investigation of last year's `Preppie Murder' trial in New York City. Robert Chambers, son of a wealthy New York City couple, was charged with the murder of Jennifer Levin, herself the product of wealthy parents and New York's finest private schools. The trial was a headline-grabber for Chambers' controversial defense and for its exposure of the aimless, dissolute lifestyle of the children of the wealthy.

Susan Brownmiller's book is based on the murder case of Lisa Steinberger, a six-year-old victim of child abuse. The trial is still ongoing. Book critic John Leonard says Waverly Place weaves through New York's Greenwich Village in ways reminiscent of Balzac and Celine.