Showing results for "kids" in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Reputed to have killed his first man at the age of 12, William Bonney went on to gun his way into Western legend as Billy the Kid. When he was finally shot himself at the age of 21, the Kid was famous throughout the country as the boy who, so he boasted, had killed a man for every year of his life. This is the story of William Bonney as told by the lawman who ended his notorious career.

Award-winning historian Michael Wallis has spent several years re-creating the rich, anecdotal saga of Billy the Kid (1859-1881), a deeply mythologized young man who became a legend in his own time and yet remains an enigma to this day. With the Gilded Age in full swing and the Industrial Revolution reshaping the American landscape, "the Kid", who was gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett in the New Mexico Territory at the age of 21, became a new breed of celebrity outlaw.

Kelp has a plan, and John Dortmunder knows that means trouble. His friend Kelp is a jinx, and his schemes, no matter how well intentioned, tend to spiral quickly out of control. But this one, Kelp swears, is airtight. He read it in a book.

In county lock-up for a traffic charge, Kelp came across a library of trashy novels by an author named Richard Stark. The hero is a thief named Parker whose plans, unlike Kelp and Dortmunder's, always work out. In one, Parker orchestrates a kidnapping so brilliant that, Kelp thinks, it would have to work in real life.

Ten years after the school massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, school shootings are a new and alarming epidemic. While sociologists have attributed the trigger of violence to peer pressure, such as bullying and social isolation, prominent psychologist Peter Langman, argues here that psychological causes are responsible. Drawing on 20 years of clinical experience, Langman offers surprising reasons for why some teens become violent. Langman divides shooters into three categories, and he discusses the role of personality, trauma, and psychosis among school shooters.  

U.S. Navy SEAL Ashe "Kid Chaos" Wilder doesn't do sedate, so packing a novel and namby-pamby sunscreen for a Caribbean vacation doesn't float his boat. Instead, he's going to ride down the world's most dangerous road on a mountain bike through the treacherous Andes in the wilds of Bolivia. His now ex-girlfriend thinks that he is much too crazy for her, and, sadly Ashe hasn't found the right woman to understand or tolerate his daredevil proclivities until he runs smack dab into Paige Sinclair. She's not only as audacious as he is, but their chemistry is off the charts.   

Yoshiro escaped a career of crime with the mafia after they killed his family. For five years, he's dropped out of life. All he wants this Christmas is to be left alone. Then, Ebony and her kids accidentally crash onto his property during a snowstorm. For three years, they've been running from her husband - who's been more monster than man. The storm picks up. They are forced to remain with Yoshiro until it dies down. And the threat of Ebony's monster remains, lurking within the shadows and threatening her safety. But Yoshiro knows all about death and blood.

The crime of sextortion has reached epidemic proportions, fuelled by both sex offenders and organised scammers targeting our most vulnerable online. Children are some of the internet's most prolific and most naive users, and increasing numbers are finding themselves caught in an evil web of networked manipulators. Saving Our Kids highlights the dangers lurking in every child's smartphone, web browser and computer game.

I know my brother is dead. But sometimes Mama gets confused. There’s plenty about the grownup world that six-year-old Aoife doesn’t understand. Like what happened to her big brother Theo and why her mama is in the hospital instead of home where she belongs. Uncle Donny says she just needs to be patient, but Aoife’s sure her mama won’t be able to come home until Aoife learns what really happened to her brother. The trouble is no one wants to talk about Theo because he was murdered. But by whom?

A little deer walks into the wolf’s den. I want answers. I know nothing of love, family, or stability, having been raised in the foster system and spat out at eighteen, pregnant, and with no memory of how that came to be. I try to find my estranged father, a man rumoured to be in the Mafia, hopeful he will use his influence to discover what really happened the night someone took my innocence. But I don’t find my father. I walk straight into the den of his associate, the Don of the Cosa Nostra.

On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There's no identification on the body. Only the dogged work of a pair of local newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics turns up any clues. But that's just the beginning of the mystery. Because the more they learn about the man and the baffling circumstances of his death, the less they understand. Was it an impossible crime? Or something stranger still.

In 1882, a notorious outlaw and a childhood friend of Billy the Kid was released from prison where he had been serving time for killing a Texas Ranger. His freedom finally secured, the outlaw disappeared and was never heard from again. Never, that is, until 1948, when he came out of hiding after almost 70 years. In the course of proving his identity to a court of law, the outlaw revealed that his friend Billy the Kid was not killed by Pat Garrett but was still alive even to that day.

In a world of wealth and power, the rules of love and war are nothing as they seem. Nora Randolph never wanted a life of luxury. But when her mother falls in love with the heir to the British throne, their small-town lives are uprooted and every little girl's fantasy becomes her reality. All too quickly, she learns the dangers of running in circles with the world's elite, especially when she attracts the attention of Winston Academy's resident golden boy. Asher Frederick has known nothing but favor and fortune.

One beautiful morning, Zhang Dongsheng pushes his wealthy in-laws off a remote mountain. It's the perfect crime. Or so he thinks. For Zhang did not expect that teenager Chaoyang and his friends would catch him in the act. An opportunity for blackmail presents itself and the kids start down a dark path that will lead to the unravelling of all their lives.

Months ago, I was homeless and broken, and in search of a dangerous man. I found the devil’s prototype in a flawless navy suit. Clay Butcher. A man twice my age who kills brutally, takes territorially, and hides his emotions deep within layers of smooth control. He is my father’s enemy and the don of the Cosa Nostra. Evil. Beautiful. Ruthless. But he’s not the villain of my story.

Alone on the couch one night, Reed and his partner are both summoned to the hospital to find two of their colleagues have been viciously attacked, left for dead on the side of the road with very little evidence to go on. With emotions high and the entire department vowing revenge, Captain Grimes assigns the case to Reed and Billie, offering them any resources available in finding the culprit. What at first seemed just an isolated incident soon begins to spiral as more bodies are found.

Hitching a ride cross-country, Reacher manages to thwart an unsavory criminal hiding out in a sleepy backwater town in rural Texas …

"I love you, Max Butcher." Those words are dangerous. Just about as dangerous as the world I was born into. As dangerous as the ruthless bastards that I call family. They hurt her. My little ballerina. My piece of purity. I wanted to keep the world beautiful for her. I failed. So I should let her go. For her own safety and my sanity. But she crawled into my bed...and settled in my head.

In his book To Catch a Predator, Chris Hansen, the on-air correspondent for one of Dateline's most successful series, looks deeper into the world of child predators. The book expands beyond the Dateline series to include more commentary from psychological and criminal experts about the origins and methods of child predators, and includes substantive advice for both parents and children on how to protect kids who use the Internet.

Bronson Butcher. My high school obsession. We were desperately in love until I made a mistake that severed our shared heart. So when he wakes up in the hospital and hears my voice, he stalks me down the corridor. He pins me to the wall and inhales me as though starving... But he's not that wild boy anymore. No. He's a ruthless man who takes what he wants, and what he wants is to punish me for running from him, remind me how my body hums beneath his—What he wants is to take me back to his city with or without my consent.

On Friday, September 12, 2014, William Tyrrell—a playful three-year-old boy dressed in a fire-engine red Spider-Man suit—disappears from a quiet street in broad daylight. It's assumed he's lost in the nearby bushland, but despite an intensive search, he's not found, and police start to suspect he's been abducted. No trace of William—not a shoe, not a hair—has ever been found, but now is not the time to surrender. How can a little boy just vanish? We have to find him.