Child Crimes

"Open the box," says Lucas. "Bet there's a body in it." Ruby doesn't want to open the abandoned grey cabinet partially hidden by falling snow but she does. And immediately wishes she hadn't. A grisly discovery starts a chilling chain of events. Can Ruby and Lucas stay one step ahead? Or will they be thrown to the wolves. When Lucas and Ruby find an abandoned trunk covered in snow, Lucas says there's bound to be a body inside. Ruby laughs but what if he's right? Nervously she starts to open it, and immediately wishes she hadn't.

An evil spirit murdered a two-bit hustler preacher on French St. Martin. At least, that’s what a conspiracy obsessed Vodou priest would have Jerry Snyder and DJ Martin believe, when they’re called in to investigate the preacher’s stabbing and the kidnapping of his underage girlfriend.

The early morning hours bring ill news for Detectives Jim North and Kerry Martin. As they learn of two dead parents and a missing child, their search leads them on a winding journey of deceit, lies, and betrayal because the only person more evil than a kidnapper are the people who let it happen.

A man shot dead in the street. But what the police find nearby is far worse. An elderly African man is found dead in the street, shot through the head. The killing has the hallmarks of a professional assassin. Dumped in a waste bin next to the dead man is the dismembered torso of a child. On his first day back at work, disgraced Detective Superintendent Ray Paterson finds himself teamed up again with newly promoted Detective Inspector Johnny Clocks. They must hunt down a ruthless killer with connections that go far beyond anything they’ve ever encountered before.

When Claire Lucas is woken by her husband asking where their baby son is, she is dazed and confused. When she follows Darren into their child’s bedroom, she hears nothing but silence. No baby cries, no cute gurgles. The only thing left in Finlay’s cot is his beloved teddy bear. Finlay has gone. Detective Jessie Blake rushes to the family’s modern home in the rugged Scottish Highlands.

Criminal psychologist Seonkyeong receives an unexpected call one day. Yi Byeongdo, a serial killer whose gruesome murders shook the world, wants to be interviewed. Yi Byeongdo, who has refused to speak to anyone until now, asks specifically for her. Seonkyeong agrees out of curiosity. That same day Hayeong, her husband’s 11-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, shows up at their door after her grandparents, with whom she lived after her mother passed away, die in a sudden fire.

Charly Bloom’s life took a wrong turn that has left her alone and frustrated. When she gets a call from an old flame, she returns to her hometown to investigate the disappearances of four children. The abductions are eerily similar to a set of previous crimes. Two decades ago, Charly and her two friends decided to play amateur detectives and help find a girl who was stolen from her home. Then, another girl went missing. Clues overlooked by the inept sheriff left only one child to survive: Charly. She managed to fight back and kill the Snatcher. Or so everyone thought.

Investigative journalist Oonagh O'Neil's instincts tell her when a story is worth pursuing. And the death of an elderly priest on the altar of his Glasgow church, just as she is about to expose the shocking truth behind the closure of an infamous Magdalene Institution, tells her a sinister cover up is in play. DI Alec Davies is appointed to investigate the priest's death. He and Oonagh go way back. But now they're united in uncovering not only what happened to the lost babies secretly born in the Institution, but what happened to the young women that survived by vowing loyalty to one another...forever.

Fifteen-year-old Rachael Donahue - abandoned by society, raised in foster homes, and violently unapproachable - has been discovered, dead, at the bottom of a stairwell at Firebird, the secure facility for juvenile offenders in Cleveland. For Maggie and Jack, her death comes with a disturbing twist - the girl may have been involved with a much older man. But Rachael's not the only resident at the center to come to a dead end. Firebird's 10-year-old wild child has overdosed in the infirmary - back-to-back tragedies that appear to be terrible accidents.

Mandy Miller disappeared from Hallow’s End when she was just three years old. She was never found. Thirty years on, Elaine Ellis is carrying her mother’s ashes back to Hallow’s End to scatter them in the place that she once called home. Elaine has never been there, but it’s the only place Jean talked about while she was growing up - so it seems as good a place as any.

Michael Redford died on his 17th birthday - the night Eddie picked him up off the street, shot him full of heroin, and assaulted him. Now he's Mikey and he works for Joss. With streaked blond hair and a cute smile, he sleeps by day and services clients at night. Sometimes he remembers his old life, but with what he's become now, he knows there is no return to his comfortable middle-class background. Then he makes a friend in Lee. A child of the streets, Lee demands more from friendship than Mikey is prepared to give. But the police are closing in on them now and Mikey's not sure anymore who he really is - streetwise Mikey or plain Michael Redford.

Four months ago Beau Epstein watched his parents die. For 14 years he lived with his family in the jungle village of Santa María, ignoring the outside world. It was paradise until the civil war came to find them. His parents were gunned down in the streets, and Beau found himself suddenly alone in the world. His grandfather, an old-school Hollywood mogul, sends for the child.

After a traumatic event that almost ripped Jen Garner’s family apart, life is finally starting to get back to normal. Then a woman’s body is found in the river. Shortly afterwards, a young boy is discovered wandering the streets. He refuses to speak to anyone, just repeats one name over and over, to the confusion of most of the local authorities - but Jen knows exactly who he’s asking for, and it’s enough to make her blood run cold....

Hamburg 1947: It is the year of extremes. After a bitterly cold winter of starvation, the bombed city groans under excruciating heat. And Chief Inspector Frank Stave is confronted with a new case. In the ruins of a shipyard, the corpse of a boy is found and Stave's hunt for the killer leads him into the world of "wolf children" - orphaned children who have fled from the Occupied Eastern Territories and are now united in gangs. When two more bodies are discovered Stave is under even increasing pressure....

After missing for three days, a young girl is found wandering the Arizona forest. She's despondent, with no memory of her ordeal beyond eerie delusions. When a second girl disappears, a pattern emerges that sets two police departments racing against the clock to save her.

When Special Agent Ren Bryce is called to Tate, Oregon, to investigate the disappearance of 12-year-old Caleb Veir, she finds a town already in mourning. Two other young boys have died recently, although in very different circumstances. As Ren digs deeper, she discovers that all is not as it seems in the Veir household - and that Tate is a small town with a big secret. Can Ren uncover the truth before more children are harmed?

It’s been years since Burke has been home, years since he’s seen his “family” and worked in the underbelly of New York City. Although his appearance has changed, his reputation grown dusty, and his wallet thin, his skills and his crew remain razor sharp. So when he is contacted by a mob boss to investigate the murder of his illegitimate daughter, Vonni, Burke takes the job and begins searching for an unspeakably vicious killer.

A Life in Pieces is a literary novella by D. X. Lewis, told through 28 sharp, emotionally rich flash stories that piece together the life and background of Edward Newman from childhood to his imminent death. Moving between styles—from lyrical fairy tale to gritty realism, from humorous to melancholic—this genre-blending work offers a fresh, deeply human listening experience.

After sabotaging a mass kidnapping in Paris, Lucas Benes faces a new and perilous threat from Siba Günerro and her anything-but-good Good Company. When a briefcase-toting kid from the Falkland Islands joins the New Resistance Spy School, 14-year-old Lucas learns the truth about his mother and becomes a boy on a mission. Lucas and friends speed in and around Rome - from the Colosseum to the Vatican - until they stowaway on a cargo ship carrying diamonds that could unlock the secret to Lucas's past and destroy the Good Company's future.

Book two of the Omega series “A Cry for Help” explores the Omega team members and dives more deeply into some of their past. In “A Cry for Help”, they continue their pursuit to stop the sexual exportation of children across the world. Jack, Shay, and the others see firsthand the sexual abuse of the child sex trafficking culture. A culture that will bring back bad memories for Jack and Shay that the others cannot even begin to understand. This makes them more determined in their quest to put an end to sex trafficking whenever and wherever they can.