Child Crimes

Matthew Corbin suffers from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. He hasn't been to school in weeks. His hands are cracked and bleeding from cleaning. He refuses to leave his bedroom. To pass the time, he observes his neighbors from his bedroom window, making mundane notes about their habits as they bustle about the cul-de-sac. When a toddler staying next door goes missing, it becomes apparent that Matthew was the last person to see him alive.

Foster carer Maggie Hartley is finally enjoying a well-earned holiday from fostering, savouring time with her brand-new baby granddaughter. One night, though, the peace and quiet is interrupted by an urgent call from Social Services. A man has been stabbed, and Social Services need to find an emergency placement for his little girl. Maggie is used to children arriving on her doorstep at all times of the day and night, but nothing can prepare her for the sight of 11-year-old Nancy.

The Find-Outers is a brilliant mystery series from best-selling author Enid Blyton, perfect for fans of The Secret Seven. A prize winning Siamese Cat has been stolen, and all evidence points to the Find-Outers' friend Luke. Fatty Larry, Daisy, Pip and Bets know Luke is innocent, but how can they prove it? The Find-Outers have another mystery to solve!

A slumber party over at Lucille's richie nanna's big giant house is sure to be a dream come true for Junie B.! 'Cause what could possibly go wrong?

This account describes how a 28-year-old from Watford, Nick Leeson, plunged Barings Bank into ruin. In 1994, Leeson seemed to be making the company millions of pounds a week, but he explains how the cover-up of a colleague's small error led to the crash of Britain's oldest merchant bank.

Friday's Mum, the Nobel Prize winning physicist, has been accused of espionage. The police think she's been selling secrets about the CERN Hadron Super Collider. Friday knows her mother isn't capable of such a thing - this is a woman who can't even operate a dishwasher. She's got to smuggle herself into Switzerland to clear her Mum's name. Fortunately, Melanie is a master of disguise. After an extremely extreme make-over, Friday arrives at CERN and finds axolotls in the water coolers, graffiti in the great hall and most baffling of all - her sister has fallen in love with an engineer!

Trish Hinde, 35, was sexually abused by her father, Gerard King, from the age of six. Alone and scared, she internalised her trauma and began suffering from violent seizures. Her father took responsibility for her epilepsy care, even abusing her on hospital visits. Trish and her five siblings were neglected, often relying on neighbours for food and watching helplessly as bailiffs carried away their possessions. In her early teens, Trish was recklessly promiscuous and became a victim of child sexual exploitation, often finding herself in danger.

Alex's second attempt to break out has failed. This time his punishment will be much worse than before. Because in the hidden, bloodstained laboratories beneath the prison, he will be made into a monster. As the warden pumps something evil into his veins - a sinisterly dark nectar - Alex becomes what he most fears: a superpowered minion of Furnace. How can he escape when the darkness is inside him?

The mystery of Evie Cormac’s background has followed her into adulthood. As a child, she was discovered hiding in a secret room where a man had been tortured to death. Many of her captors and abusers escaped justice, unseen but not forgotten. Now, on a hot summer’s day, the past drags Evie back as she watches the bodies of seventeen migrants wash up on a Lincolnshire beach. There is only one survivor, a teenage boy, who tells police their small boat was deliberately rammed and sunk.

Addie doesn't know who left the footprints in the snow outside her house, but she's convinced it's someone seeking revenge for the horrific crime her autistic son committed a year ago. Follow Addie as she tries to uncover the trespasser's identity and come to terms with the actions of a son she loves but can't understand.

A royal wedding is what most girls dream about. It means one celebration after another: balls, fireworks, and revelry until dawn. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth about her engagement: that she agreed to marry the crown prince in exchange for Arin's freedom. But can Kestrel trust Arin? Can she even trust herself? For Kestrel is becoming very good at deception.

In books like Buried Onions and Boys at Work, Gary Soto displays a gift for revealing the tough, heart-breaking life of contemporary urban kids. In Petty Crimes, Soto offers 10 stories about the risky situations and dangerous little scams faced by young people growing up on the harsh streets of the city.

Mr Goon is on holiday, and there's a new policeman in town. While the Find-Outers are up to their usual games, he stumbles upon a puzzling mystery: the theatre safe has been robbed! The top suspect is Boysie, the pantomime cat, but Fatty, Larry, Daisy, Pip and Bets aren't convinced. Who could the real thief be?

Mickey and Mark Moore are ordinary decent criminals - hard men who live by their own code and leaders of a gang that has made millions at the point of a gun. But when Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is sent to infiltrate the tightly knit team of bank robbers, he discovers that he has more in common with them then he first thought. And that perhaps being a career criminal isn't the worst thing in the world.

Between 1950 and 1970, the Vatican and the American Catholic Church sent nearly four thousand Italian children to the United States for adoption into “good” Catholic homes. With the religious stigma of unwed motherhood turning families against daughters and a Church and State wanting “illegitimate” children sent abroad, mothers were lied to, given forms to sign that they didn’t understand, or even told their baby had died, all to further supply this international adoption pipeline.

On a cold day in Reykjavik, a baby goes missing from her pram. When the child's blanket washes up on the beach, and the mother is found dead, everyone's worst fears seem to have been realised. Eleven years later, and detective Huldar and child psychologist Freyja are now working in the same police building, on the same team. Freyja believes that personal and professional relationships must remain separate, however hard that may be.

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma, thanks to the oil that was discovered beneath their land. Then, one by one, the Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances, and anyone who tried to investigate met the same end. As the death toll surpassed more than 24 Osage, the newly created Bureau of Investigation, which became the FBI, took up the case, one of the organization's first major homicide investigations.

Myrtle Hardcastle has no desire to go on a relaxing travel excursion with her aunt Helena when there are more important things to be done at home, like keeping close tabs on criminals and murder trials. Unfortunately, she has no say in the matter. So off Myrtle goes - with her governess, Miss Judson, and cat, Peony, in tow - on a fabulous private railway coach headed for the English seaside.

On March 26, 2018, rescue workers discovered a crumpled SUV and the bodies of two women and several children at the bottom of a cliff beside the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators soon concluded that the crash was a murder-suicide, but there was more to the story: Jennifer and Sarah Hart, it turned out, were a white married couple who had adopted the six Black children from two different Texas families in 2006 and 2008. Behind the family's loving facade, however, was a pattern of abuse and neglect that went ignored.

It is an ordinary Tuesday morning in April when bored, lonely Charlie Fisher witnesses something incredible. Right before his eyes, in a busy square in Marseille, a group of pickpockets pulls off an amazing robbery. As the young bandits appear to melt into the crowd, Charlie realizes with a start that he himself was one of their marks.