She's brazen. She's judgmental. And her last name doesn't seem to fit.

But the half million people who tune in to Nancy Grace on any given night are loyal fans of the CNN Headline News show and its headmistress.

Grace, the former Georgia prosecutor turned talk show honcho, has made calling out the bad guy an art form by relentlessly questioning her guests like a bull charges its prey. Her story is steeped in personal tragedy — her fiance was murdered — and she has turned her "Law & Order" meets Judge Judy show into a courtroom, putting miscreants on the witness stand and breaking them down.

Grace has recently come under fire for her tough questioning of Melinda Duckett, the young mother who was interviewed about the disappearance of her 2-year-old son. Grace lambasted Duckett for refusing to disclose her whereabouts on the day the child went missing. (Grace pounded her desk, and demanded "Where were you? Why aren't you telling us where you were that day?)

Duckett committed suicide a day after the taping and CNN Headline News aired the interview anyway.

Browbeating guests has become Grace's MO, but that's just one of the theatrical tools the talk show host unleashes to command attention.

asap asked experts to analyze the daily drama that is Nancy Grace.

THE PERFORMANCE

The show is called "Nancy Grace" — not the "Nancy Grace Factor" or "On the Record with Nancy Grace." And it airs seven times a week on a 24-hour news channel.

But it's no news show.

"She's producing a drama just like any other crime show," says Brian Stelter, editor of TVNewser.com. "She's using journalism as her stage because she is taking these real-life events and putting her spin on them. Even the way she introduces the show, it sounds less like news and more like entertainment."

Dramatic music at the start of the show sets a firm and controlling tone. Her sensationalized narrative (Baby Abby found alive!) Both grab the viewer at the outset, says Ted Mandell, who teaches in the Department of Radio, Television and Film at the University of Notre Dame.

"Musical scores are one of easiest ways to invoke emotion into a piece," he says. "Let's make the event really scary and really important with music and identify it as 'The War on Terror.' Give it a headline, a narrative. Simplify the story into a cliche bumper sicker — 'America Fights Back.' It gives the viewer something to latch on to."

There are other parts to this theatrical performance —‚ the sound effect of a cracking whip when Grace is interrogating someone. The way she inflects her voice with her barrage of questions (Tell me about the suspect. Was it a woman? Were they in a home? What kind of structure was it? Is the woman under police custody?") How she ends her show with "Good Night, Everybody. And until tomorrow night, good night, friend." Nancy Grace is our friend!

Even her appearance and Southern accent play a role.

Her Carol Brady hairstyle (there are a couple of layers in there), blazers and industrial strength eye shadow make her appear as a polished version of a regular career woman. Her southern accent conveys a sense of charm and congeniality, says Rick Frishman, president of Planned TV Arts, a PR firm that books and trains guests for interviews with radio, television and newspapers. She is one of us.

"The biggest prop on this show is Nancy Grace herself," says TJ Walker, president of Media Training Worldwide, which coaches celebrities, CEOs and prime ministers on how to communicate with the media. "Her voice, her expression, her utter look of contempt, disgust at anyone who would be so bold to bring up an item of due process, an item or procedure or investigation, a fact that somehow muddles the issue."

THE EMOTIONAL APPEAL OF NANCY GRACE

Grace has no gray area — you know where she stands right off the bat. She has an uncanny ability to decide whether someone is good or evil in an instant. And her feelings are written are all over face - an indignant stare, nose flaring.

"Nancy Grace comes at this with more passion than the average TV show host because of her fiance being murdered," says Dr. Carole Lieberman, a media psychiatrist who was part of the defense in the famous Jenny Jones case where a guest on the show killed another. "So she becomes emotionally involved in the story. It's her frustration at not being able to protect her fiance that comes out in these relentless interviews."

She leaves no stone unturned, says Eric Deggans, a TV Critic for the St. Petersburg Times, interviewing possible suspects as though she was law enforcement, determining their innocent or guilt before she has all the evidence.

"Part of her schtick is you are guilty before being proven innocent," says Deggans. "That's the formula they have developed to showcase her personality and to tell these stories in a way they think will draw viewers."

Grace, who became the star of CNN Headline News' first real show in February 2005, also brings passion to her stories — always advocating for the victim, and ostracizing anyone accused of a crime or whose story has some holes (Melinda Duckett).

"She has an interesting blend of weakness and vulnerability coupled with strength and power," says Walker. "I think that's one reason people find her fascinating to watch."

But maybe not so fascinating to be interviewed by.

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Megan Scott is an asap reporter in New York.

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