Child Crimes

Appie Knoll is the kind of suburb where kids grow up right. But something is wrong. Fourteen-year-old Kevin Bartlett disappears. Everyone thinks he's run away -- until the comic strip ransom note arrives. It doesn't take Spenser long to get the picture -- an affluent family seething with rage, a desperate boy making strange friends...friends like Vic Harroway, body builder. Mr. Muscle is Spenser's only lead and he isn't talking...except with his fists

I, Ethan Antonio Giovanni Callahan, first son of the former head of the Irish mob, Liam Alec Callahan, and former head of the Italian mafia, ex-governor, Melody Nicci Giovanni Callahan, solemnly swear to ruthlessly protect our family name, business, and way of life, no matter the cost to me or anyone else. I shall show no mercy; I shall offer no forgiveness; there will be no peace for those who stand against me. I will live for my family. I will kill for my family. I will marry for my family.

>"Lily?" My stomach dropped as a tall, dark-haired man stepped into view. Had he been hiding between the trees? "No. Sorry." Gulping, I took a step back. "I'm not Lily." He shook his head, a satisfied grin on his face. "No. You are Lily." "I'm Summer. You have the wrong person." For months, Summer is trapped in a cellar with the man who took her - and three other girls: Rose, Poppy, and Violet. His perfect, pure flowers. His family. But flowers can't survive long cut off from the sun, and time is running out....

Ashley is a young single mum raising her daughter, Eden, and working hard to do the very best job she can - until one night she can't find a babysitter and makes the decision to leave Eden home alone for a couple of hours, asleep inside a wardrobe. It is an action that begins a terrible downward spiral for both of them. When Eden arrives at experienced foster carer Louise Allen's home, she has entered the care system because her mother is in prison. Eden is five years old and will not speak to any human.

What happens when criminals outgun the regular police force? Or when they threaten innocent hostages? Or when a riot spins out of control? In dangerous situations like these, SWAT teams are often the answer. With special training and gear, SWAT teams are ready to tackle whatever comes their way.

This prizewinning author of over thirty books for young people confronts the period of struggle and confinement that marked the end of his own youth. On the surface, the narrative tumbles from one crazed moment to the next as Gantos pieces together the story of his restless final year of high school, his short-lived career as a criminal, and his time in prison.

One late spring evening in 2010, Shannan Gilbert—after running through the oceanfront community of Oak Beach screaming for her life—went missing. No one who had heard of her disappearance thought much about what had happened to the twenty-four-year-old: she was a Craigslist escort who had been fleeing a scene—of what, no one could be sure. The Suffolk County police, too, seemed to have paid little attention—until seven months later, when an unexpected discovery in a bramble alongside a nearby highway turned up four bodies, all evenly spaced, all wrapped in burlap. But none of them Shannan’s.

Emily has always felt like an outsider, so when a family friend takes her under his wing she is delighted. But soon it becomes clear that his motives are not all they seem. At the age of 11, Emily is groomed into being a ‘county lines’ drug trafficker. It is the beginning of a vicious cycle that sees her become prey to one abuser after another, involving a huge child-sex-trafficking gang. The scale of the abuse—at the hands of hundreds of men—is sickening, and at times it feels like there will never be an escape. But then, in the darkest of moments, a ray of light shines....

Things are getting desperate for Maya and her friends. Hunted by the powerful St. Clouds and now a rival Cabal as well, they're quickly running out of places to hide. And with the whole world thinking they died in a helicopter crash, it's not like they can just go to the authorities for help. All they have is the name and number of someone who might be able to give them a few answers. Answers to why they're so valuable, and why their supernatural powers are getting more and more out of control.

Lucas Tappan, a wealthy and eccentric billionaire and founder of Icarus Space Systems, approaches the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute with an outlandish proposal—to finance a careful, scientific excavation of the Roswell Incident site, where a UFO is alleged to have crashed in 1947. A skeptical Nora Kelly, to her great annoyance, is tasked with the job.

In September of 1990, in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, sixteen-year-old Lisa Pruett was on her way to a midnight tryst with her boyfriend when she was viciously stabbed to death only thirty feet from the boy's home. The murder cast a palpable gloom over the upscale community and sparked accusations, theories, and rumors among Lisa's friends and peers. With a fresh perspective and painstaking research, James Renner reconstructs the events leading up to and following that heartbreaking night. What emerges is a portrait of a community seething with dark undercurrents.

It's been eight months since Mickey Bolitar witnessed the shocking, tragic death of his father. Eight months of lies, dark secrets, and unanswered questions. While he desperately wants answers, Mickey's sophomore year of high school brings on a whole new set of troubles. Spoon is in the hospital, Rachel won't tell him where he stands, his basketball teammates hate him... and then there's Ema's surprise announcement: She has an online boyfriend, and he's vanished.

From the 1920s to 1950, Georgia Tann ran a black-market baby business at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis. The publication of Lisa Wingate’s novel Before We Were Yours brought new awareness of Tann’s lucrative career in child trafficking. Adoptees who knew little about their pasts gained insight into the startling facts behind their family histories. Encouraged by their contact with Wingate and award-winning journalist Judy Christie, who documented the stories of 15 adoptees in this book, many determined Tann survivors set out to trace their roots.

After his wife, Helen, is brazenly abducted before his eyes, Special Agent Pendergast furiously pursues the kidnappers, chasing them across the country and into Mexico. But then, things go terribly, tragically wrong; the kidnappers escape; and a shattered Pendergast retreats to his New York apartment and shuts out the world. But when a string of bizarre murders erupts across several Manhattan hotels, NYPD Lieutenant D'Agosta asks his friend Pendergast for help.

Dr. Watson, the right-hand man of master sleuth Sherlock Holmes, has gone missing. This prompts Sherlock to enlist the assistance of Enola Holmes, his intrepid younger sister. She investigates Watson's home just in time to witness the arrival of a bizarre bouquet blooming with convolvulus, hawthorn, and white poppies - flowers that symbolize death!

Run, Hide, Repeat is a memoir of a childhood steeped in unexplained fear and menace. Gripping and suspenseful, it moves from Dakin's uneasy acceptance of her family's dire situation to bewildered anger. As compelling and twisted as a thriller, Run Hide Repeat is an unforgettable portrait of a family under threat and the resilience of family bonds.

Commanded by the magical artifact known as the Dragon’s Eye, junior con artist Callan and his friends are eagerly reaching the end of the epic quest that will finally free him from the Eye’s sinister hold. But their final task is their most ambitious: sneaking into the emperor’s private island prison and rescuing a man from a jail cell that has been locked tight for a hundred years. This impossible heist will strain the gang’s unique abilities to thieve and deceive everyone from the guards, the city elite, the warden, and even the nefarious local crime boss who warns them to stay away.

Jack Reacher has no place to go and all the time in the world to get there, so a remote railroad stop on the prairie with the curious name of Mother's Rest seems perfect for an aimless one-day stopover. He expects to find a lonely pioneer tombstone in a sea of nearly ripe wheat...but instead there is a woman waiting for a missing colleague, a cryptic note about 200 deaths, and a small town full of silent, watchful people.

Stories of magic, superstition, and witchcraft were strictly forbidden in the little town of Salem Village. But a group of young girls ignored those rules, spellbound by the tales told by a woman named Tituba. When questioned about their activities, the terrified girls set off a whirlwind of controversy as they accused townsperson after townsperson of being witches.

Eight true crime stories of murder and mayhem. In my first audiobook as a true crime author I've started with a few of the stories that have haunted me for some time. Some of these stories are unbelievable in their brutality while others are astounding in the stupidity of the killers. This collection of stories are from all around the globe and have no common thread between them other than that they are both thought provoking and disturbing. The stories included in this anthology are dark and creepy and will leave you with a new understanding of just how fragile the human mind can be.