Through a series of extraordinary interviews, this book explores the gap and overlap between real crime and its representation in the arts. As long as it has been documented, crime has captivated the public s imagination. This book brings together the world of real crime with its artistic counterpart and allows a dialogue to develop between the two, each commenting on and assessing the impact of the other.When directors make films, actors play roles, writers write fiction, or musicians create songs, should they have a responsibility towards the public? Should they be realistic and unsparing in detail  or should they be protecting us from the excesses of the criminal world by sanitising their productions? Or are they just telling stories? Does the film industry continue to learn from the mafia, or has the inventiveness of scriptwriters had a real effect on organized crime? What experiences do these people who shape our perceptions of crime and criminals have of the real thing? This remarkable book is the first to explore the representation of crime by interviewing those involved on, in, and around all sides of the law, both real and fictional, and often somewhere in between.