The enormous sums paid for the release of hostages coupled with law enforcement‘s inability to stem the tide has made kidnapping for ransom a worldwide plague. The increasing rate of reported incidents from every corner of the globe suggests this plague is growing. Kidnap for Ransom: Resolving the Unthinkable removes the veil of mystery and dispels

The New York Times described what happened to New York businessman Jack Teich as a “front page horror.” Two hundred FBI agents and Nassau County police officers combined forces to form a dragnet, hunt for his kidnappers, and rescue him. Teich lay handcuffed and chained to the walls of a closet in the Bronx with a medical bandage wrapped around his head to cover his eyes. His captors demanded that his wife, Janet, drop a bag with $750,000 (the equivalent of four million dollars in today’s currency) in a locker at Penn Station, making the Jack Teich ransom one of the highest in U.S. history at the time. FBI and Nassau County police detectives spent over a year before finally uncovering the meticulously planned kidnapping ploy hatched by radical mastermind Richard Warren Williams. The FBI internally dubbed the Jack Teich kidnapping operation “Jacknap.” The real-life crime drama that followed proved stranger than fiction, involving a tense across-the-country manhunt, a trailer in California stuffed with tens of thousands of ransom dollars hidden inside, a contentious jury trial that dominated NYC headlines for months; a guilty verdict that was overturned twenty-one years later on a controversial technicality; a retrial stymied by a mysterious fire that incinerated court records; and a civil verdict ruling that the kidnapper pay Jack Teich back the ransom money, plus interest. Operation Jacknap tells the incredible true crime story that continues even now. Indeed, as of this writing, no one knows where the majority of the ransom money is located. Inside, Teich also details his offer of a reward to anyone helping track down the still missing money and kidnappers.

Edgar Award Winner: True stories of miscarriages of justice, legal battles, and landmark reversals, by the creator of Perry Mason. In 1945, Erle Stanley Gardner, noted attorney and author of the popular Perry Mason mysteries, was contacted by an overwhelmed California public defender who believed his doomed client was innocent. William Marvin Lindley had been convicted of the rape and murder of a young girl along the banks of the Yuba River, and was awaiting execution at San Quentin. After reviewing the case, Gardner agreed to help—it seemed the fate of the “Red-Headed Killer” hinged on the testimony of a colorblind witness. Gardner’s intervention sparked the Court of Last Resort. The Innocence Project of its day, this ambitious and ultimately successful undertaking was devoted to investigating, reviewing, and reversing wrongful convictions owing to poor legal representation, prosecutorial abuses, biased police activity, bench corruption, unreliable witnesses, and careless forensic-evidence testimony. The crimes: rape, murder, kidnapping, and manslaughter. The prisoners: underprivileged and vulnerable men wrongly convicted and condemned to life sentences or death row with only one hope—the devotion of Erle Stanley Gardner and the Court of Last Resort. Featuring Gardner’s most damning cases of injustice from across the country, The Court of Last Resort won the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime. Originating as a monthly column in Argosy magazine, it was produced as a dramatized court TV show for NBC.

From award-winning author Meg Gardiner, co-author of Michael Mann’s Heat 2 JUDGE, JURY—AND EXECUTION. Rory Mackenzie vowed to never return to her hometown of Ransom River, California. But she comes back and does her civic duty. Now she’s juror number seven on a high-profile murder case. While most of the town is focused on the tense and shocking circumstances of the trial, Rory’s return to Ransom River dredges up troubling memories from her childhood that she can no longer ignore. And in the wake of a desperate attack on the courthouse, Rory realizes exposing these dark skeletons has connected her to an old case that was never solved, and that bringing the truth to light just might destroy her. You can’t go home again—and survive—in this mesmerizing crime novel by Meg Gardiner, “a top-tier mystery writer at the top of her game” (BookPage).

Travel to medieval Scotland in #1 New York Times bestselling author Julie Garwood’s beloved classic—a “rip-roaring romp, full of humor, romance, sword fights, and crisp dialogue...so much fun, it begs to be read in one sitting” (The Cedar Rapids Gazette). In the dark days after the death of Richard the Lionheart, lives and lands fell into upheaval at the hands of the power-hungry King John and his violent minions. One victim was innocent Gillian, who was just a child when the cruel and ambitious Baron Alford, determined to recover for the despotic king a jeweled box that slipped through his fingers, slaughtered her father and tore her family apart. A decade later, Gillian once again crosses paths with the nefarious baron, but instead of losing everything like she had as a child, she finds the key to resolving her past in two handsome Scottish chieftains. With the cunning and courage of the daring Scotsmen and the friendship of a new ally named Bridgid KirkConnell, Gillian at last has she what needs to reclaim her home, her family, and her father’s reputation. But in the presence of the mighty warriors, Gillian and Bridgid discover that desire can be a weapon of conquest, betrayal can slay trust in a heartbeat, and the greatest risk of all is to surrender to unexpected love.

In his first novel in more than a decade, award-winning author David Malouf reimagines the pivotal narrative of Homer’s Iliad—one of the most famous passages in all of literature. This is the story of the relationship between two grieving men at war: fierce Achilles, who has lost his beloved Patroclus in the siege of Troy; and woeful Priam, whose son Hector killed Patroclus and was in turn savaged by Achilles. A moving tale of suffering, sorrow, and redemption, Ransom is incandescent in its delicate and powerful lyricism and its unstated imperative that we imagine our lives in the glow of fellow feeling.