And as a man with Asperger's Syndrome, his unique personality helps him ferret out almost any answer there is. But his latest question is a rather odd one--who stole a preserved head from the Garden State Cryonics Institute?Arriving at the scene of the crime accompanied by his new colleague, Ms. Washburn, Samuel finds that what started out as a theft has escalated to murder. With suspects and motives emerging at a rapid rate, one final question remains--can Samuel's powers of deduction uncover a killer in the face of overwhelming odds?Praise:A Mystery Scene Best Book of 2014

    But Bathum was a total fraud: he was a meth-head with a history of sexually abusing his patients, scamming insurance companies, and eliminating whistle-blowers. Like Rose Stahl. But this intended victim would be his last. Stahl would risk her life to bring down the monster she and so many other people in need had once trusted for their salvation.Evan Wright’s Bad Therapist is part of Exposure, a collection of six incredible and true stories of American double lives from millionaire CEOs and suburban teens to undercover investigators and scam artists—all for whom secrets are a way of life. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single astonished sitting.

    But when cracking the case means involving his computer-whiz nephew, will he risk the only family he's ever had? From the #1 bestselling author of Sleepers and The Wolf. . . .As one of the NYPD's most trusted "tin badges"--retired detectives brought in to solve cases that are beyond the reach of the everyday force--Tank Rizzo has faced off against some of the city's toughest criminals without breaking a sweat. To tackle a case involving a dangerous kingpin known as Gonzo, Tank turns to his best friend and ex-partner, Pearl; a former mobster living out a seemingly quiet retirement as the owner of Tank's favorite Italian restaurant; and a team of expert misfits he would trust with his life. But Gonzo will stop at nothing to defend the empire he's built, and won't hesitate to make it personal.Then Tank gets a call telling him that his brother and sister-in-law, estranged from him for many years, have been killed in a horrific car accident. Tank is the only family left for his orphaned teenage nephew, Chris, although he knows his lifestyle is ill-suited to win him father of the year.Chris moves in with Tank, and the two circle each other warily. It's only when Chris reveals an interest in true crime and a genius-level skill with computers that they begin to bond. Chris's skills may be exactly what Tank's team needs to take Gonzo down--but getting him involved could put his life at risk.

    But beneath the placid veneer, darker truths lie waiting. Her fifteen-year-old, Jessica, is teetering on the cusp of drugs and delinquency. And someone is stalking the troubled teenager. Someone who has already violated their home and stolen their peace of mind.A time to love....Now the police are involved. Grace is relieved--and worried. Is Jessica in danger from a drug dealer who wants to silence her? Detective Tony Marino is on the case. He's too close for comfort, asking disturbing questions, probing into her long-buried past, igniting feelings Grace has tried to suppress. In Tony's strong arms, Grace finds comfort, protection--passion--as he tries to shield them from the evil lurking just beyond their door....

    All I ever did was to supply a demand that was pretty popular.    Why, the very guys that make my trade good are the ones that yell the loudest about me. Some of the leading judges use the stuff.    When I sell liquor, it's called bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on silver trays on Lake Shore Drive, it's called hospitality.-- Al Capone

    In Dark Dreams he reveals the twisted motives and perverse thinking that go into the most reprehensible crimes. He also catalogs the innovative and remarkably effective techniques--techniques that he helped pioneer at the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit--that allow Law Enforcement agents to construct psychological profiles of the offenders who comit them.Hazelwood has helped track down some of the most violent and well known criminals in modern history; in Dark Dreams he takes readers into his world--a sinister world inhabited by scores of dangerous offenders for every Roy Hazelwood who would put them behind bars. These are sexual sadists, serial rapists, child molesters, and serial killers. The cases he describes are as shocking as they are perplexing; their resolutions are as fascinating as they are innovative:* A young woman disappears from the convenience store where she works. Her body is later found in a field, strapped to a makeshift St. Andrew's Cross and mutilated beyond description. Who committed this heinous crime? And why?* A teenager's corpse is found hanging in a storm sewer. His clothes are neatly folded by the entrance and a stopwatch lies in the grime beneath him. Is he the victim of a bizarre, ritualistic murder . . . or an elaborate masturbatory fantasy gone awry?* A married couple, driving with their toddler in the back seat, pick up a female hitchhiker. They kidnap her and for seven years keep her in a box under their bed as a sexual slave. The wife had agreed to this inhuman arrangement in exchange for a second child. Who was to blame?But as gruesome as the crimes are and as unsettling as the odds seem, Hazelwood, writing with veteran journalsit Stephen Michaud, proves that the right amounts of determination and logic can bring even the most cunning and devious criminals to justice. Dark Dreams is a 2002 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Fact Crime.

    Anna keeps passing Michael books until one day he disappears, suddenly released after a private detective manipulated a witness in Michael's trial. Outside, Michael encounters a Washington, D.C., that has changed a lot during his time locked up. Once shady storefronts are now trendy beer gardens and flower shops. But what hasn't changed is the hard choice between the temptation of crime and doing what's right. Trying to balance his new job, his love of reading, and the debt he owes to the man who got him released, Michael struggles to figure out his place in this new world before he loses control.<Smart and fast-paced, The Man Who Came Uptown brings Washington, D.C. to life in a high-stakes story of tough choices.

    Completely absorbing and atmospheric” (Philip Kerr).Robin knew Paul wasn’t perfect. But he said they were so lucky to have found each other, and she believed it was true. She is a meticulous accountant, almost forty. He is an artist and university professor, twenty years older. When Paul suggests a month in Morocco, where he once lived and worked, a place where the modern meets the medieval, Robin reluctantly agrees. Once immersed into the swirling, white hot exotica of a walled city on the North African Atlantic coast, Robin finds herself acclimatizing to its wonderful strangeness. Paul is everything she wants him to be—passionate, talented, knowledgeable. She is convinced that it is here she will finally become pregnant. But then Paul suddenly disappears, and Robin finds herself the prime suspect in the police inquiry. As her understanding of the truth starts to unravel, Robin lurches from the crumbling art deco of Casablanca to the daunting Sahara, caught in an increasingly terrifying spiral from which there is no easy escape. With his acclaimed ability to write thought-provoking page-turners, Douglas Kennedy takes readers into a world where only Patricia Highsmith has ever dared. The Blue Hour is a roller-coaster journey into a heart of darkness that asks the question: What would you do if your life depended on it?

    But the tourist venture turns into a scheme of terror. Together with an extremist cosmonaut, the tourist slaughters all the astronauts on board the million-pound ISS-and prepares to crash it into New York City at 17,500 miles an hour, causing more devastation than a hundred atomic bombs. In doing so, they hope to annihilate the world's financial system. All that stands between them and their deadly goal is the lone survivor aboard the ISS, Kimberly Hasid-Robinson, a newly divorced astronaut who has barricaded herself in a secure area.

    A former FBI profiler shows you what can. As one of the world's top experts on psychopathy and criminal behavior, Mary Ellen O'Toole has seen repeatedly how relying on the sense of fear alone often fails to protect us from danger. Whether you are opening the door to a stranger or meeting a date you connected with online, you need to know how to protect yourself from harm-physical, financial, legal, and professional. Using the SMART method, which O'Toole developed and used at the FBI, we can confidently know how to: • Respond to a threat in any situation • Hire someone who will work inside your home like a contractor or housekeeper • Figure out whether a prospective employee is a safe bet • Know whom you can trust with your children An especially useful book for women living alone, parents who are concerned about their children's safety, and employers worried about employees who might go postal, Dangerous Instincts gives us the tools used by professionals to navigate potentially hazardous waters. Like The Gift of Fear and The Sociopath Next Door, it will appeal to anyone looking to make the right call in an ever threatening world.

    Set in the world of Brooklyn gangsters and juvenile delinquents, Portrait of a Young Man Drowning reveals a character caught in a whirlpool of street crime and Oedipal passion, driven by circumstances beyond his control into acts of self-destruction and twisted sexuality.

    Painters, scientists, revolutionaries, poets -- all were there. But so, too, were the shadows: Paris was a violent, criminal place, its sinister alleyways the haunts of Apache gangsters and its cafes the gathering places of murderous anarchists. In 1911, it fell victim to perhaps the greatest theft of all time -- the taking of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. Immediately, Alphonse Bertillon, a detective world-renowned for pioneering crime-scene investigation techniques, was called upon to solve the crime. And quickly the Paris police had a suspect: a young Spanish artist named Pablo Picasso....

    From her abuse at the hands of a family member to her present-day life in Barcelona, where she briefly moonlighted as a dubber of Italian pornography into English, Matthews reveals herself to be a darkly funny, deeply contemporary woman with a keen awareness of how her body has been routinely hijacked, and how she has been “formatted” by her early trauma. Her story is a study of her uneasy relationships with female desire, her tormentors, and her lovers—with whom she seeks out both the infliction and receipt of harm. This book is an attempt, sometimes self-thwarted, to break down barriers: sexual and emotional for Matthews, literary for Shields.For them, the only response to the unspeakable is to speak, to do that thing you do with your mouth, as directly and honestly as possible. Their provocative performance refuses neat resolution or emotional pornography; it will have readers, from literary critics to Jezebel commentators, raving, raging, celebrating, talking.

    A forgotten singer from the early days of jazz is at the center of this riveting book -- a narrative that is part mystery, part biography, part meditation on the meaning and power of music.

    SonnenfeldShawn AchorThis collection of articles includes "How Resilience Works," by Diane Coutu; "Resilience for the Rest of Us," by Daniel Goleman; "How to Evaluate, Manage, and Strengthen Your Resilience," by David Kopans; "Find the Coaching in Criticism," by Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone; "Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters," by Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld and Andrew J. Ward; and "Resilience Is About How You Recharge, Not How You Endure," by Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan.How to be human at work. The HBR Emotional Intelligence Series features smart, essential reading on the human side of professional life from the pages of Harvard Business Review. Each book in the series offers proven research showing how our emotions impact our work lives, practical advice for managing difficult people and situations, and inspiring essays on what it means to tend to our emotional well-being at work. Uplifting and practical, these books describe the social skills that are critical for ambitious professionals to master.