"Work hard. Do good. Be incredible!" is the advice Teresa Rae Wood shares with the listeners of her local radio show, Modern Pioneers, and the advice she strives to live by every day. She has fled a bad marriage and rebuilt a life with her children, Claire and Joshua, and their caring stepfather, Bruce. Their love for each other binds them as a family through the daily struggles of making ends meet. But when they received unexpected news that Teresa, only 38, is dying of cancer, their lives all begin to unravel and drift apart. Strayed's intimate portraits of these fully human characters in a time of crisis show the varying truths of grief, forgiveness, and the beautiful terrors of learning how to keep living.

    A former Vassar girl and scion of a prominent local family, Christa had abandoned a glamorous career as a fashion writer for a simpler life on the Cape, where she had an affair with a married fisherman and had his child. After her murder, evidence pointed toward several local men who had known her. Yet in 2005, investigators arrested Christopher McCowen, a thirty-four-year-old African-American garbage collector with an IQ of 76. The local headlines screamed, “Black Trash Hauler Ruins Beautiful White Family” and “Black Murderer Apprehended in Fashion Writer Slaying,” while the sole evidence against McCowen was a DNA match showing that he’d had sex with Worthington prior to her murder. There were no fingerprints, no witnesses, and although the state medical examiner acknowledged there was no evidence of rape, the defendant was convicted after a five-week trial replete with conflicting testimony, accusations of crime scene contamination, and police misconduct—and was condemned to three lifetime sentences in prison with no parole. Rarely has a homicide trial been refracted so clearly through the prism of those who engineered it, and in Reasonable Doubt, bestselling author and biographer Peter Manso is determined to rectify what has become one of the most grossly unjust verdicts in modern trial history. In his riveting new book he bares the anatomy of a horrific murder—as well as the political corruption and racism that appear to be endemic in one of America’s most privileged playgrounds, Cape Cod. Exhaustively researched and vividly accessible, Reasonable Doubt is a no-holds-barred account of not only Christa Worthington’s murder but also of a botched investigation and a trial that was rife with bias. Manso dug deep into the case, and the results were explosive. The Cape DA indicted the author, threatening him with fifty years in prison. The trial and conviction of Christopher McCowen for rape and murder should worry American citizens, and should prompt us to truly examine the lip service we pay to the presumption of innocence . . . and to reasonable doubt. With this explosive and challenging book Manso does just that.

    It’s a compelling account of one woman's life, and what drove her to take the life of her six-year-old son. How everyday choices shape our perceptions, justifications, and actions. One must consider how close to the edge we all are. It’s a true story told in layman’s terms, with the hope of preventing another tragic loss.

    Clair's world. As a boy, he never knew what would set his father off--maybe the ice cubes had melted in his glass of Tab, maybe dinner was overcooked or undercooked or the gravy was too runny. Regardless, the beatings always came. As did the twisted games of cat and mouse--being thrown from a rowboat into frigid Lake Michigan, the middle-of-the-night moves to different states, or being left to dangle over a ten-story balcony while his father watched from inside. But one fateful night when the police answered the call, the truth came to light from the shadows, sparking national headlines: Chip St. Clair's entire life--his name, even his date of birth--had been a lie, and the man he called 'Dad' was an impostor, an escaped child killer who had been on the run for over two decades. The stunning revelation would send one of America's Most Wanted to justice and another on a quest for his true identity. With chilling detail and a riveting, lyrical narrative, The Butterfly Garden reveals St. Clair's struggle to piece together his haunted past before it consumes him and shares his inspiring metamorphosis from victim to victim's advocate. The Butterfly Garden is a timeless triumph, a reminder that hope can be the most powerful of all emotions, freeing us to soar despite the past and the odds against us.

    These are the true-life diary entries of a prison officer, working in one of the country’s worst correctional facility. The daily stabbings, rapes and murders are just the beginning of a nightmare ride into the darkness of life behind bars. It’s a raw and ruthless look behind the walls in all its brutal honesty. This is maximum-security.

    The Florida State grad was juggling fatherhood with a thriving real estate appraisal career. And that very evening? He and his high school sweetheart, Denise, planned to celebrate their sixth wedding anniversary.But Mike Williams never returned home.When an intense search of the lake's marshy waters turned up only his hunting boat and a camouflage hat, investigators reached the morbid conclusion he'd fallen overboard and drowned, his body eaten by alligators. Nearly two decades passed before the dark secrets hidden at Lake Seminole--and elsewhere--were finally revealed.EVIL AT LAKE SEMINOLE is a diabolical tale of betrayal, greed, and deception--and of a courageous mother who devoted her life and savings to uncovering the truth of what really happened to her son.

    Two Men in the same body...One Joseph Kallinger was a superb craftsman, a sensitive poet, a devoted family man, and a human being who held all life sacred.The other Joseph Kallinger was a lover who needed images of bloody violence to maintain sexual potency, and a father who physically tortured his children, lived in abnormal intimacy with his daughter, and enlisted his 12-year-old son in a campaign of rape and murder that terrified millions.This is the true story of Joseph Kallinger- both of him...

    Three years later her second newborn daughter suffered an identical fate and this time the police were unable to stop searching until they had discovered the whole, horrifying truth.This is the full terrifying story of twisted sexuality and hate seething below the surface of a seemingly normal family, and of the massive investigation and nerve shattering trial that made the unthinkable a reality. Written by the lawyer who won the case and the reporter who covered its entirety, the reader is given a unique close-up of the riveting drama that unfolds, painting a dark picture of the depraved family who lived with a murderous secret.

    Now, Carl Hoffman uncovers startling new evidence that finally tells the full, astonishing story.Despite exhaustive searches, no trace of Rockefeller was ever found. Soon after his disappearance, rumors surfaced that he'd been killed and ceremonially eaten by the local Asmat—a native tribe of warriors whose complex culture was built around sacred, reciprocal violence, head hunting, and ritual cannibalism. The Dutch government and the Rockefeller family denied the story, and Michael's death was officially ruled a drowning. Yet doubts lingered. Sensational rumors and stories circulated, fueling speculation and intrigue for decades. The real story has long waited to be told—until now.Retracing Rockefeller's steps, award-winning journalist Carl Hoffman traveled to the jungles of New Guinea, immersing himself in a world of headhunters and cannibals, secret spirits and customs, and getting to know generations of Asmat. Through exhaustive archival research, he uncovered never-before-seen original documents and located witnesses willing to speak publically after fifty years.In Savage Harvest he finally solves this decades-old mystery and illuminates a culture transformed by years of colonial rule, whose people continue to be shaped by ancient customs and lore. Combining history, art, colonialism, adventure, and ethnography, Savage Harvest is a mesmerizing whodunit, and a fascinating portrait of the clash between two civilizations that resulted in the death of one of America's richest and most powerful scions.

    She was also a three-bottle-a-day alcoholic, hopelessly in love with the IHOP’s manager, Allen Bryant. Bryant wanted his live-in lover, IHOP owner Art Venecia, dead. And Dee Casteel helped him to arrange it. After Venecia’s murder, Dee and Bryant moved into his house, forged checks, spent his money, and embezzled from the IHOP to buy gifts for Bryant’s boyfriends. But there was an even more gruesome killing to come … WITHOUT MERCY is an engrossing, bizarre true story that traces the twisted path to a loathsome crime. But it is also the story of middle-class citizens gone wrong, of an almost-perfect murder, the traumas of alcoholism, and a legal system that can be deadly in itself. Dee Casteel was an ordinary woman—who now stands convicted of one of the most cold-blooded crimes of this century.

    The true crime short stories within this three book collection are unimaginably gruesome. I start all of my True Crime books with a quick word of warning. Most news articles and television true crime shows skim over the vile details of truly horrible crimes. In my books I don’t gloss over the facts, regardless of how disgusting they may be. I try to give my readers a clear and accurate description on just how demented the killers really were. I do my best not to leave anything out. The stories included in these books are not for the squeamish.What you are about to read are my first three books. The stories in this collection will make you realize just how fragile the human mind can be.A sampling of the stories include:The Canal Killer - A violent psychopath cuts off the head, hands, and feet of his girlfriends and dumps them in the canals of London and Rotterdam.The Head in the Bucket - A drug kingpin chops off the head of one of his dealers and carries it around in a Home Depot bucket.Captain Cash - Another drug dealer butchers an entire family so he can take over a man’s fruit shipping business and transform it into a drug shipping business.The Coffee Killer - A young woman, jealous of her rich socialite friend, poisons her by lacing her coffee with cyanide in a public coffee shop.The Arizona Torso Killer - A petite trophy-wife shoots her husband, freezes his body, hacks him up with a jigsaw and dumps his torso in a dumpster behind a grocery store.The Oxford Murder - A young college student strangles his girlfriend and crams her body into an eight-inch crawlspace beneath the stairs.The Girl in the Barrel - A homeowner finds a fifty-five gallon barrel in the crawl space beneath his home. What they find inside the barrel unlocks a murder mystery dating back thirty years.The Dexter Wannabe - A young man obsessed with the TV show Dexter lures unsuspecting victims to his "kill room" and keeps a detailed diary of the dismemberment of his prey.The Murder of Elizabeth Olten - A fifteen-year-old girl wants to know what it feels like to kill a person. Interpol's Most Wanted - When fishermen pull up the dead body of a man in the English Channel, police stumble upon one of Interpol's Most Wanted criminals.The Girl in the Box - An unbelievable story of a psychopath who kidnaps a young girl and keeps her as a slave locked beneath his bed for seven years.The Green Chain Rapist - A beautiful young mother is butchered in broad daylight in a London park and the only witness is her two-year-old son. Police then waste three years chasing the wrong man while the real killer slaughters another woman.Paige’s Secret Life - A young single-mother of three goes missing and police realize she's been living a secret life that her friends and family didn't know about.A Walking Shadow - A suicidal teenager, frustrated with the bank threatening to foreclose on the family home, kidnaps the bank manager's ten-year-old son and holds him for ransom.Plus 18 more truly disturbing true crime stories.

    As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, “Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.’” The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.In The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity; brings each department of the library to vivid life through on-the-ground reporting; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; reflects on her own experiences in libraries; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago.Along the way, Orlean introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters from libraries past and present—from Mary Foy, who in 1880 at eighteen years old was named the head of the Los Angeles Public Library at a time when men still dominated the role, to Dr. C.J.K. Jones, a pastor, citrus farmer, and polymath known as “The Human Encyclopedia” who roamed the library dispensing information; from Charles Lummis, a wildly eccentric journalist and adventurer who was determined to make the L.A. library one of the best in the world, to the current staff, who do heroic work every day to ensure that their institution remains a vital part of the city it serves.Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country. It is also a master journalist’s reminder that, perhaps especially in the digital era, they are more necessary than ever.

     She came from a tiny village in Kentucky. The State moved her as a child into a foster home in a town so small it had one stoplight. New to her own beauty and a little awkward, Katie had the biggest smile on her high school cheerleading squad. In September 2002, she matriculated as a freshman at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green. She majored in the dental program, but as it was for many college students her age, partying was of equal priority. She worked days at the smoothie shop, nights at the local strip club, and fell in love with a football player who wouldn't date her. Five feet two in heels and without a bad word to say about anyone, Katie Autry was sweet, kind, and utterly naïve. She was making the clumsy strides of a newborn colt, discovering what the world was like and learning to be her own person. And on the morning of May 4, 2003, Katie Autry was raped, stabbed, sprayed with hairspray, and set on fire in her own dormitory room. In telling the true story of this shocking crime, Bluegrass describes the devastation of not one but three families. Two young men, whose lives seem preordained to intertwine, are jailed for the crime: DNA evidence places Stephen Soules, an unemployed, mixed-race high school dropout, atthe scene, and Lucas Goodrum, a twenty-one-year-old pot dealer with an ex-wife, a girlfriend still in high school, and an inauspicious history of domestic abuse, is held by an ever-changing confession. The friends of the suspects and the foster and birth families of the victim form complex and warring social nets that are cast across town. And a small southern community, populated by eccentrics of every socioeconomic class, from dirt-poor to millionaire, responds to the horror. Like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, this tale is redolent with atmosphere, dark tension, and lush landscapes. With the keen eye of a talented young journalist returning to his southern roots, Van Meter paints a vivid portrait of the town, the characters who fill it, and the simmering class conflicts that made an injustice like this not only possible, but inevitable.

    But beneath the athleticism, smiles, sponsorship deals, and haul of gold medals was a dark secret: a story of sexual abuse and trauma that, when revealed, became one of the biggest scandals in the history of American sports. In early 2018, Larry Nassar, the former doctor for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University, was sentenced to serve out the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty to a variety of sex crimes. In a show of unparalleled force, more than 150 young women - from gold medalists to former Michigan State University athletes to old family friends - confronted the once beloved Nassar in court, sharing their pain and resolve. Many of them took legal, financial, and career risks to speak out. But these women’s stories also reveal a stranger, more far-reaching truth: that the institutions responsible for protecting them - from the United States Olympic Committee to local police departments - had known in some form about the abuse for years, and had not put an end to it. Twisted tells the harrowing story of these crimes and how Larry Nassar got away with them for as long as he did. New York Times best-selling author Mary Pilon and Carla Correa chronicle the scandal from its inception, tracking the institutions that Nassar hid behind, the athletic culture that he benefited from, and the women who eventually brought him to justice. In this Audible Original, you’ll hear directly from these people - including the voices of coaches, parents, industry leaders, and the survivors themselves - as they grapple with the truth about Nassar and describe what it took to bring him down.

    . . . I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for ten years.”   A horrifying story rapidly unfolded. Ariel Castro, a local school bus driver, had separately lured Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight to his home, where he kept them chained. In the decade that followed, the three were raped, psychologically abused, and threatened with death. Berry had a daughter—Jocelyn—by their captor.   Drawing upon their recollections and the diary kept by Amanda Berry, Berry and Gina DeJesus describe a tale of unimaginable torment, and Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporters Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan interweave the events within Castro’s house with original reporting on efforts to find the missing girls. The full story behind the headlines—including details never previously released on Castro’s life and motivations—Hope is a harrowing yet inspiring chronicle of two women whose courage, ingenuity, and resourcefulness ultimately delivered them back to their lives and families.