Sarah S.

When you're a spy, you see a lot of strategies. It's your job to see grand strategies. Regional strategies. National strategies. Most of all, individual strategies. It's your job to see them and to understand them, because that's how you know when threats exist. To identify threats, you're infiltrating an enemy's organization. You're figuring out who is making decisions. And who isn't. You're collecting intelligence on what they know. And what they don't know. You're figuring out their plans.

The authors present violent cases of true crime from Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.

Best-selling authors Gregg Olsen and Kathryn Casey take a new look at some of the Southwest's most heinous crimes, including drag queen Cliff Youens (who went by the name Brandi West on stage), convicted of stabbing his/her girlfriend 39 times; Hurley Fontenot, a junior high school principal accused of killing his rival, the football coach, over the love of a school secretary; and Tanya Reid, the first Munchhausen Syndrome By Proxy mother most Americans ever heard of.

April 25, 1986 in Chernobyl was a turning point in world history. The disaster not only changed the world’s perception of nuclear power and the science that spawned it, but also our understanding of the planet’s delicate ecology. With the images of the abandoned homes and playgrounds beyond the barbed wire of the 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone, the rusting graveyards of contaminated trucks and helicopters, the farmland lashed with black rain, the event fixed for all time the notion of radiation as an invisible killer.

Florida journalism undergrad Rebecca Sorley is like any other college student. She tries to keep up with her studies, her friends, and her hot-tempered roommate, Ellie, who regularly courts trouble with the law. When a male student's remains are found in alligator-infested waters, the university warns students to stay away from the reptiles. But then a second body shows up, and the link is undeniable. Both men belonged to the same fraternity and had a reputation for preying on and hurting women.

Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty - a 20-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre - took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. With an original voice that combines fearless curiosity and mordant wit, Caitlin tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters, gallows humor, and vivid characters (both living and very dead).

Dixie Shanahan had a terribly troubled and abusive marriage in the sleepy little town of Defiance, Iowa. Then one summer day in 2002, Dixie's mean and wicked husband was gone. Some of the local residents presumed that Scott packed his bags and left town. But others were skeptical. After all, Scott's brown Ford pick-up truck was still parked in his driveway. The disappearance mystified Defiance for more than a year. Then in late October, 2003, the truth emerged - or did it?

Death is not an alibi. There are laws that even the dead must obey: no hijacking the bodies of the living, no possessing corpses...and never speak of the Dark. It's the job of police exorcist Arphallo Sirus and his murdered partner, Sam Trent, to enforce these laws. No one ever said working the Dead Beat was easy, but now it's become nearly impossible as the ghosts and the living alike commit theft and murder in search of answers to the mysteries of life, death, and what lies beyond.

There are laws that even the dead must obey: No hijacking the bodies of the living, no possessing corpses...and never speak of the dark. It's the job of police exorcist Arphallo Sirus and his murdered partner, Sam Trent, to enforce these laws. No one ever said working the Dead Beat was easy, but now it's become nearly impossible as the ghosts and the living alike commit theft and murder in search of answers to the mysteries of life, death, and what lies beyond.

Death is not an alibi. There are laws that even the dead must obey: no hijacking the bodies of the living, no possessing corpses...and never speak of the Dark. It’s the job of police exorcist Arphallo Sirus and his murdered partner, Sam Trent, to enforce these laws. No one ever said working the Dead Beat was easy, but now it’s become nearly impossible as the ghosts and the living alike commit theft and murder in search of answers to the mysteries of life, death, and what lies beyond.