Private Eye

Clive Barker has seemed one of those outlaw artists who pay fealty not to society or to art but only to the mandates of their own id. A horror novelist turned filmmaker ("Nightbreed," the original "Hellraiser"), he's drawn to imagery from the most recondite of sexual practices and is completely unafraid to push the limits of taste. He's a nasty boy, but he's got guts.But his new film, "Lord of Illusions," isn't the Bosch-stoned-on-peyote masterpiece he seems capable of making. Perhaps the major studio contract and big budget undercut his willingness to go beyond the beyond; perhaps the marketing boys got to him; perhaps he lost his nerve; perhaps the true curse of success is not damnation but banality.

In 1961, John F. Kennedy was president of the United States, Martin Luther King Jr. was leading civil rights demonstrators in Alabama and Georgia, and Easy Rawlins was searching for Black Betty out of South Central Los Angeles."

In his first interview in three years, jailed private eye Anthony Pellicano accused federal authorities of exaggerating the strength of their case against him, which he predicted would soon fizzle out like a box-office flop. Speaking by telephone from the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles last week, Pellicano insisted that he would never cooperate with authorities or testify against a bevy of A-list lawyers, Hollywood executives, business moguls and celebrities who have hired him over the years to dig up dirt on their adversaries.

Mike Mills is a private eye. Nothing fancy. Just a quiet office on Main Street in Mount Airy. Even little towns have their secrets.But when you're a private eye, you never know who's going to darken your door. Mills sure never expected the big guy that came calling the other day.It was Tuesday, one o'clock. Mills was sitting at his desk, writing out a check for his life insurance. He's a former cop. He doesn't take chances. His secretary, Christina Thompson, was down the hall, powdering her nose.

I've always thought that the first and most perfect film noir was created by a guy named Homer. (And, no, children, I'm not referring to the animated cartoon star of The Simpsons, but to the ancient Greek poet.) There's a middle-aged guy on a boat who has fallen on hard times, but still is crafty like a fox. He's adrift at sea and utterly lost, but he won't ask for directions. During his adventures, he runs afoul of thugs and man-eating femme fatales.

The Black Dahlia What It's About: Top cops Aaron Eckhart and Josh Hartnett try to solve the instantly infamous case of a would-be starlet whose murder seemed to sum up the sick soul of post-World War II L.A. Rated: R The Scoop: Brian De Palma, the director, imbues the imagery with an obsessive grandeur even as the narrative falls apart. But the result is still a wan, unsatisfying follow-up to the great L.A. Confidential. Grade: B- Gridiron Gang What it's about: The Rock plays the real life juvenile probation officer who molded some of the toughest residents at Camp Kilpatrick, a "last chance" facility for underage felons, into a football team.

It is time for True Crime Blotter, the feature in which we examine reports of actual crimes to see if they reveal important underlying truths about our society (no).We begin with a shocking crime that either was or was not committed in Springfield, Ill., last year, according to an article from the July 29 edition of The State Journal-Register sent in by many alert readers. This article states that a man told police that a neighbor "may have switched glass eyeballs with him." The man claimed that the neighbor "also had a glass eye, but apparently preferred the victim's," and that "his false eyeball was taken from his pocket and replaced with another one."

Sue Grafton's alphabetical mystery series, which started nine years ago with " 'A' Is for Alibi," has made Kinsey Millhone one of America's favorite private eyes. Lately, Ms. Grafton has been showing us new sides of her intrepid detective. Last year's " 'G' Is for Gumshoe" featured a serious romantic involvement between Kinsey and a bodyguard, Robert Dietz. Now " 'H' Is for Homicide" (Holt, 256 pages, $17.95) gives us Kinsey under cover, playing the brassy Hannah Moore in order to get to the bottom of an insurance scam.

BERLIN -- As a former officer in East Germany's State Security Ministry, known as the Stasi, Roland Ernst knew doors would not swing open to welcome him on the job market when the ministry was dissolved last winter.The Stasi's 84,000 former employees, most of whom are now unemployed, were probably the most widely reviled group of people in East Germany.But Mr. Ernst, a former counterespionage agent, is banking on the hatred's thinning out under the demands of capitalist society. Like a number of other former Stasi agents, he has become a private eye."

Heart-shaped boxes of chocolates. Arm-in-arm strolls through city parks. Passionate kisses over candlelit dinners.Ah yes, Valentine's Day. God's gift to the private eye working an adultery case.Aside from Christmas and birthdays, the experienced gumshoe will tell you that no time is better for catching that cheating spouse in flagrante delicto than today, Valentine's Day. "People that are running around are obviously going to run around on that day," said Barbie Bunch, a private investigator in Severna Park.