Daniel is my son. He has always been mine. And he always will be. On some level deep inside, Laura Bateman knows something is wrong. That her relationship with her son is not what it should be. That it is based on lies. But bad things have happened to Laura. Things that change a person. Forever. For twenty-six-year-old Daniel, the discovery that his mother is not who he thought comes close to destroying him. As his world turns upside down, he searches for sanity in the madness that has become his life. Daniel is left with nothing but questions. Why did Laura do something so terrible? Can he move past the demons of his childhood? And the biggest question of all: can he ever forgive Laura? Revised edition: This edition of His Kidnapper's Shoes includes editorial revisions.
Mark folded the tarp and carried it and the locked box into the potting shed. He laid the tarp on a shelf and sat on the overturned clay pot Fred had used as a stool. Rubbing his eyes he stared bleakly at the old metal file that held the seeds of something too awful to imagine. Nothing had prepared him for this. At the peak of a high-powered corporate career, Mark Grant enjoys position, prestige, and a loving family. His world is shaken when he abruptly loses the job that has been the focus of his life. He starts anew as the owner of a small but profitable landscape business and-just when he seems to have regained his balance-discovers that the company he owns is part of a vast network that threatens not only his livelihood, but the very lives of his family, friends, and countless other innocent victims. He begins to collect evidence of illegally dumped biohazardous waste to present to the Department of Environmental Health, but the risk of exposing the illicit activity intensifies when the criminals threaten his daughter's life. Will Mark be able to stop an environmental disaster and, at the same time, save his family and his business?
When Guardrail's sister is abducted, he finds out that in order to get her back, he and the task force must embark on another dangerous journey to a place full of their darkest nightmares! Jack and Selena wake up on a mysterious island which neither of them have ever seen before. Together, as they begin to explore its mysteries, they find something which neither of them had ever expected.
Although the 1932 kidnapping of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby was a worldwide sensation, it was only one of an estimated three thousand ransom kidnappings that occurred in the United States that year. The epidemic hit America during the Great Depression and the last days of Prohibition as criminal gangs turned kidnapping into the highly lucrative “snatch racket.” Wealthy families and celebrities purchased kidnap insurance, hired armed chauffeurs and bodyguards, and carried loaded handguns. Some sent their children to school or summer camp in Europe to get them out of harm’s way. “Recent Kidnappings in America” was a regular feature in the New York Times, while Time magazine included kidnappings in its weekly list of notable births, deaths, and other milestones. The Snatch Racket is the story of a crime epidemic that so frightened families that it undermined confidence in law enforcement and government in general. In response, President Franklin D. Roosevelt waged a three-year War against Kidnappers with J. Edgar Hoover and his G-men (newly empowered to carry weapons and make arrests) on the front lines. This first U.S. war against terrorism revolutionized and modernized law enforcement in the United States, dramatically expanding the powers of the federal government in the fight against not only kidnapping but many new types of interstate crime. At the heart of the narrative are some of the most iconic names of the twentieth century: Rockefeller, Ford, Lindbergh, Roosevelt, Hoover, Capone, Schwarzkopf, and Hearst, all caught up in the kidnapping frenzy. The Snatch Racket is a spellbinding account of terrifying abductions of prominent citizens, gangsters invading homes with machine guns, the struggles of law enforcement, and the courage of families doing whatever it took to bring home the ransomed.
Giannos tells us the real story of real people. He narrates the struggle migrants faced, attempting to come to the USA in the eighteenth century to escape poverty from rural Greece. Our hero, the nine-year-old Giannos, was given by his parents to a childless couple to be their adopted son. Instead of the boy becoming a loved son, he is exploited. He is forced to polish shoes at the public square of a big city and surrender his earnings to his adopted father until he is fifteen years old. Attempting to migrate to the USA, he ends up in Central America. His frugal lifestyle and his ambition to make big money is realized when he finally leaves Central America and arrives in the United States. His entrepreneurial mind and dedication to hard work pays off. He becomes a successful commodity importer and becomes wealthy. Yet he never forgets how it feels to be desperate. He becomes a philanthropist and distinguishes himself in his society until the end of his life. Giannos never marries. Poverty during his childhood convinced him that marriage is not for him. Instead, he wants to have a lot of money to satisfy his manhood in the company of beautiful ladies. Giannos believes that our future is pre-ordained by destiny. He is king to the people around him and is generous with his money to his society at large. Finally, he dies in the company of a woman who, without either of them knowing it, is his illegitimate child!
Revised and updated with new information, this Jane Adams award winner is an in-depth examination of the Emmett Till murder case, a catalyst of the Civil Rights Movement. The kidnapping and violent murder of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 was and is a uniquely American tragedy. Till, a black teenager from Chicago, was visiting family in a small town in Mississippi, when he allegedly whistled at a white woman. Three days later, his brutally beaten body was found floating in the Tallahatchie River. In clear, vivid detail Chris Crowe investigates the before-and-aftermath of Till's murder, as well as the dramatic trial and speedy acquittal of his white murderers, situating both in the context of the nascent Civil Rights Movement. Newly reissued with a new chapter of additional material--including recently uncovered details about Till's accuser's testimony--this book grants eye-opening insight to the legacy of Emmett Till.
They are not just two strangers from different cultures in love with each other, but two people who are true soul mates in every sense; they share a relationship so special that it transcends all planes. Christina Jurgen, who grew up in the rural Midwest and is a product of traditional midwestern upbringing, is working as a waitress in San Diego in 2000 when she meets Michael Speed, a globe trotter who owns Global Sports Management in the United Kingdom. From the moment they first connect, Christina owns a piece of Michael's heart. Their courtship spans three continents and many cultures, and they expect to spend the rest of their life together. Michael came into her life like a zephyr, and just when Christina begins to believe that dreams do come true, fate intervenes and pulls her away from the love of her life. And it's all because of a secret from her past threatens to damage their relationship forever.
Three friends in a small Egyptian city celebrate idleness, elegance, and joie de vivre. Summoned home to Egypt after a long European debauch (disguised as “study”), our hero Teymour—in the opening line of A Splendid Conspiracy—is feeling “as unlucky as a flea on a bald man’s head.” Poor Teymour sits forlorn in a provincial café, a far cry from his beloved Paris. Two old friends, however, rescue him. They applaud his phony diploma as perfect in “a world where everything is false” and they draw him into their hedonistic rounds as gentlemen of leisure. Life, they explain, “while essentially pointless is extremely interesting.” The small city may seem tedious, but there are women to seduce, powerful men to tease, and also strange events: rich notables are disappearing. Eyeing the machinations of our three pleasure seekers and nervous about the missing rich men, the authorities soon see—in complex schemes to bed young girls—signs of political conspiracies. The three young men, although mistaken for terrorists, enjoy freedom, wit, and romance. After all, though “not every man is capable of appreciating what is around him,” the conspirators in pleasure certainly do.
