In a recent case in Poland, a detective working on an unsolved murder discovered clues in a novel that was published several years after the crime was committed. Following leads in what he began to see as a novelistic description of certain elements of the crime, he eventually tabbed the author as the prime suspect, leading to a conviction. The case raised many questions about the blurring of reality and fiction in the mind of a killer, and in our own minds. Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment explores the tortures of a guilty conscience (exposing at the same time the author's own reputed sociopathic tendencies), and the gamesmanship of serial killers like the Zodiac taps into the contradictions of our collective dread, and fascination, when confronted with the diabolical. What does the allure of the criminal mind say about our own latent compulsions? Can the insights of those who work to understand criminality and, in some cases, decode it and bring about a prosecution, illuminate how the criminal impulse germinates in the mind, and how the criminal conceives of his own guilt or innocence? A forensic psychologist, an author of crime novels, an ex-convict, and a criminal investigator will address the spectrum of criminal thought and behavior, exploring patterns ranging from the predictable to the truly impenetrable.

Spencer Eth is Professor and Vice-Chairman in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at New York Medical College. He serves as the Medical Director of Behavioral Health Services at Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers, whose Manhattan campus was the closest trauma hospital to Ground Zero. For the last 20 years, Dr. Eth has studied and treated children, Vietnam veterans, and others struggling with issues of trauma and grief.

Joe Loya is an essayist, playwright, and author of the memoir, "The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell: Confessions of a Bank Robber." He currently works with men and women in and out of prison who are changing their lives in order to better reintegrate into society. He lives with his wife and daughter in Northern California.

Shoba Sreenivasan is a forensic psychologist who conducts sexually violent predator evaluations for the states of California and Washington, and general criminal mental capacity evaluations for the state court system. She is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, where she teaches psychologists and psychiatrists undergoing post-doctoral forensic training. In addition, she works as a staff psychologist for the V.A., providing outreach services to veterans incarcerated in prisons and at a state forensic hospital.