Teen Crime Fiction

People in Merit, Wisconsin, always said Jimmy was...you know. But people said all sorts of stupid stuff. Nobody really knew anything. Nobody really knew Jimmy. I guess you could say I knew Jimmy as well as anyone (which was not very well). I knew what scared him. And I knew he had dreams even if I didn't understand them. Even if he nearly ruined my life to pursue them. Jimmy's dead now, and I definitely know that better than anyone. I know about blood and bone and how bodies decompose. I know about shadows and stones and hatchets. I know what a last cry for help sounds like.

How badly do you want to be famous? What - or who - would you sacrifice? These are the questions Justine Childs is forced to reckon with as the main suspect in the murder of it-girl Eva-Kate Kelly. Not long ago, Eva-Kate drew Justine into her orbit before meeting her untimely end in a Venice Beach canal. Prosecutors and the public want to know: Did Justine, now a social media darling in her own right, kill her celebrity best friend? Can anyone be trusted to tell the truth? Justine has always wanted people to know her name - but not all notoriety is created equal.

A murdered child. A small town. A cult lurking in the shadows...Vickie has always lived a quiet, ordinary life in an equally quiet and ordinary small town. Yet one fateful night a child turns up dead in the woods behind her house in a ritualistic slaughter...Vickie and her family are suddenly thrown into a national spotlight. But as the investigation unfolds, she begins to realize her family isn’t so ordinary after all. Evil is inching closer to those she holds dear and Vickie isn't sure who she can ultimately trust.

When a woman's body is found in a Portland park, suspicion falls on an awkward kid who lives only a few blocks away, a teen who collects knives, loves first-person shooter video games, and obsessively doodles violent scenes in his school notebooks. Nick Walker goes from being a member of Portland's Search and Rescue team to the prime suspect in a murder, his very interest in SAR seen as proof of his fascination with violence. How is this even possible? And can Alexis and Ruby find a way to help clear Nick's name before it's too late?

In his meteoric, 13-year rise to fame, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a mass movement for civil rights - with his relentless peaceful, non-violent protests, public demonstrations, and eloquent speeches. But as violent threats cast a dark shadow over Dr. King's life, Swanson hones in on James Earl Ray, a bizarre, racist prison escapee who tragically ends King's life.

As the daughter of the wildly successful inspirational singer-author Skye - who died in a plane crash when Marnie was young - Marnie Skyedottir stands to inherit great wealth. But until she is old enough, she must survive a dreary life in private boarding school. She endures by escaping into an online role-playing game as much as possible, and steering well clear of the other girls. So when Marnie is kidnapped by someone who also claims to be Skye's daughter, she is terrified.

Cameryn Mahoney works as the assistant to her father, the county coroner of Silverton, Colorado. But if thats not hard enough, her long-lost mother has made a surprise return to Cameryns life. When her mother picks up a mysterious young hitchhiker, Cameryn senses that the girl is running from something. But before she can find out more, the girl is found deadwith a gun in her hand. Is it suicide? Or something even more sinister?

Cameron Smith attends an elite boarding school and has just been accepted to Princeton University alongside his beautiful girlfriend, Claire. Life for Cameron would be perfect, except that Cameron Smith is actually Skip O'Rourke, and Skip O'Rourke ran away from his grifter family four years ago...along with $100,000 of their "earnings" (because starting a new life is not cheap). But when his uncle Wonderful tracks him down, Skip's given an ultimatum: Come back to the family for one last con, or say good-bye to life as Cameron.

Lucy has been forced to run away from home, as she fears for her safety from her drunken father. She is taken on as a maid at the house of Dr Dee, court magician, upon whom Elizabeth I relies heavily, even down to advising the date of her coronation. The household is strange and sinister, and Lucy has a nose for intrigue.... And she has more than enough to satisfy her: Lucy stumbles across a plot to assassinate the queen and has to find means to warn her....

Best-selling author Robert Cormier's suspenseful and masterfully told novel takes bold steps into some of the most difficult topical territory ever conceived for young adult fiction.

When a petty thief falls though a glass roof in his attempt to escape from the police, what should have been the death of him marks the beginning of a while new life. After his broken body is reconstructed by an ambitious young doctor, he is released from prison, and, with the help of Victorian London's extensive sewer system, he becomes the most elusive burglar in the city.

Willa is lucky: She has a loving blended family that gets along. Not all families are so fortunate. But when a bloody crime takes place hundreds of miles away, it has an explosive effect on Willa's peaceful life. The estranged father she hardly remembers has murdered his new wife and children, and is headed east toward Willa and her mother. Under police protection, Willa discovers that her mother has harbored secrets that are threatening to boil over. Has everything Willa believed about herself been a lie?

New York Times best-selling author Joe Schreiber pens a funny, action-packed novel that is equal parts Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and La Femme Nikita. It’s prom night, and Perry is looking forward to playing a gig with his band in New York City. But when his mother makes him take their quiet and geeky Lithuanian exchange student to the dance, he finds himself on a reckless ride through Manhattan—in his dad’s red Jaguar—with a trained assassin.

Don't you trust me? I mean, look at me. Blond, blue eyed, the very image of innocence. Pretty enough, if you care about that kind of thing. I don't. But would a normal person switch identities with some wet mess of a girl at the airport just to get her to stop bawling about being separated from her loser boyfriend and sent to live with some distant relatives? Nope, she wouldn't. Yet I did. I'm not as normal as you think. And you'll just have to trust me.

The Urban Outlaws have been betrayed - and defeated. Or so Hector thought when he stole the world's most advanced computer virus. But Hector will need to try much harder than just crossing the Atlantic if he wants to outsmart Jack and his team... With the help of a shadowy figure known as The Shepherd, the Urban Outlaws risk everything and head to the States. They plan to take Hector down and stop him from using the virus as the ultimate hacking tool - the world's secrets, and their own, are in his fingertips and if they don't act fast, our lives will be changed forever.

A talented cellist with a promising future, Jack daydreams about two things: leaving his isolated village of Massena, New York, to become a professional musician and kissing Emaline Durham—a Gentile girl he knows he can never be with. But when Emaline’s little sister, Daisy, disappears in Paradise Woods, a seething lie turns Jack’s world into a living nightmare.

Finn Blackstone is in trouble. A mission to find out the truth about her mysteriously absent father has morphed into a perilous game of cat and mouse. Now Finn and her friends must navigate a terrifying futuristic landscape filled with machines intent on the group's annihilation. As Finn struggles against external forces, she faces an imminent threat as she grapples with her alter ego, Infinity.

It's been three months since Lane made her first kill - the sadistic Decapitator - and now she feels both closer and more alienated than ever from her united, grieving family. Haunted by conflicting memories of her mother, Lane resumes her role as the vigilante Masked Savior out of a feeling of obligation - but her heart just isn't in it anymore. Now that Lane has felt the rush of deeper, darker thrills, a growing part of her wants to revisit its seductive power, and she's not sure how long she can resist.

A "dirty" school election, suspicious state test scores -- Adam Canfield and his star reporters are chasing some red-hot leads. There's only one glitch: the school board has shut down The Slash for exposing the town's most powerful family, and now the staff has to find a way to publish it themselves. Enter the Ameche brothers: two goofy kid entrepreneurs with a knack for refurbishing junk - and a talent for selling ads - but a shaky command of journalistic ethics.

In the middle of the night, Victoria Powell receives a distressing phone call from her friend Kayla. But when Victoria heads out to meet her, she's nowhere to be found. A month earlier, a file containing incriminating evidence disappears at a prominent hedge fund. Suspecting a connection with the her friend's disappearance and fearing for her life, Victoria escapes the city to Martha’s Vineyard. Arriving during a dangerous nor’easter, she delves into her deceased mother’s diaries - unaware of the danger that has followed her to the island.