Teen Crime

Forever altered by his experience in Furnace Penetentiary, Alex has done the impossible and escaped. But the battle for freedom is only just beginning. Charged with his superhuman abilities, Alex must uncover the last of Furnace's secrets - the truth about the man who built the prison, the man known as Alfred Furnace.

ALA notable author Iain Lawrence pens a moving tale with a Dickensian atmosphere about a young man's life aboard a cruel 19th-century prison ship. 14-year-old Tom Tin is forced to scavenge on the grimy streets of London after his father is sent to debtor's prison. Tom's survival is threatened by the sinister lowlifes that inhabit his hopeless world. But when he is unjustly arrested for murder, he finds a place that is even worse than the dark city streets.

Alex's second attempt to break out has failed. This time his punishment will be much worse than before. Because in the hidden, bloodstained laboratories beneath the prison, he will be made into a monster. As the warden pumps something evil into his veins - a sinisterly dark nectar - Alex becomes what he most fears: a superpowered minion of Furnace. How can he escape when the darkness is inside him?

Aggie Morton lives in a small town on the coast of England in 1902. Adventurous and imaginative but deeply shy, Aggie hasn't got much to do since the death of her beloved father...until the fateful day when she crosses paths with 12-year-old Belgian immigrant Hector Perot and discovers a dead body on the floor of the Mermaid Dance Room! As the number of suspects grows and the murder threatens to tear the town apart, Aggie and her new friend will need every tool at their disposal - including their insatiable curiosity, deductive skills, and not a little help from their friends.

Theo Boone might only be 13, but he's already uncovered key evidence in a groundbreaking murder trial and discovered the truth behind his best friend's abduction. Now with the latest unfolding of events in Strattenburg, Theo will face his biggest challenge yet. Filled with the intrigue and page-turning suspense that made John Grisham a number-one international best seller and the undisputed master of the legal thriller, Theodore Boone's adventures will keep listeners enthralled until the very last minute.

The empire rests on the edge of a knife, and sisters Ashyn and Moria are the handle and the blade. Desperate to outmaneuver the evil Alvar Kitsune, whose hold on the people grows stronger every day, Emperor Tatsu begs Moria to put aside past grievances and ally with Gavril - at least long enough to make an attempt on Alvar's life.

In books like Buried Onions and Boys at Work, Gary Soto displays a gift for revealing the tough, heart-breaking life of contemporary urban kids. In Petty Crimes, Soto offers 10 stories about the risky situations and dangerous little scams faced by young people growing up on the harsh streets of the city.

Emma O'Donovan is 18, beautiful, and fearless. It's the beginning of summer in a quiet Irish town and, tonight, she and her friends have dressed to impress. Everyone is at the party, and all eyes are on Emma. The next morning, Emma's parents discover her collapsed on the doorstop of their home, unconscious. She is disheveled, bleeding, and disoriented, looking as if she had been dumped there. To her distress, Emma can't remember what happened the night before.

Thrown into solitary confinement for his failed escape attempt from furnace prison, Alex Sawyer struggles not to let the hellish pitch-black silence overwhelm him. Before another escape attempt is even possible, he must first survive the nightmare that now haunts his endless nights. Because the hole doesn’t need monsters to do its dirty work — not the usual brutes in black suits and their silver-eyed, fleshless hounds, or wheezing freaks with filthy syringes.

Jake has finally got his driver's license, and tonight he has his brother's car as well. He and his friend Mickey take the car out and cruise the strip. When they challenge another driver to a street race, a disastrous chain reaction causes an accident. Jake and Mickey leave the scene, trying to convince themselves they were not involved. Jake finds he cannot pretend it didn't happen and struggles with deciding on the right thing to do. Should he pretend he was not involved? Or should he go to the police?

Marguerite Caine grew up surrounded by cutting-edge scientific theories, thanks to her brilliant physicist parents. Yet nothing is more astounding than her mother's latest invention - a device called the Firebird, which allows people to leap into alternate dimensions.

Enne Salta was raised as a proper young lady, and no lady would willingly visit New Reynes, the so-called City of Sin. But when her mother goes missing, Enne must leave her finishing school - and her reputation - behind to follow her mother's trail to the city where no one survives uncorrupted.

At first glance Gabriel Cardona is the poster-boy American teenager: great athlete, bright, handsome, and charismatic. But the streets of his border town of Laredo, Texas, are poor and dangerous, and it isn't long before Gabriel abandons his promising future for the allure of the Zetas, a drug cartel with roots in the Mexican military. His younger friend, Bart, as well as others from Gabriel's childhood join him in working for the Zetas, boosting cars and smuggling drugs, eventually catching the eye of the cartel's leadership.

Fresh off the boat from England, Vita Marlowe has a job to do. Her beloved grandfather Jack has been cheated out of his home and possessions by a notorious conman with Mafia connections. Seeing Jack's spirit is broken, Vita is desperate to make him happy again, so she devises a plan to outwit his enemies and recover his home. She finds a young pickpocket, working the streets of the city. And, nearby, two boys with highly unusual skills and secrets of their own are about to be pulled into her lawless, death-defying plan.

Boy Nobody is the perennial new kid in school, the one few notice and nobody thinks much about. He shows up in a new high school in a new town under a new name, makes a few friends, and doesn't stay long. Just long enough for someone to die - of "natural causes". Mission accomplished; Boy Nobody disappears, moving on to the next target. But when The Program assigns him to the mayor of New York City, things change.

Ricky Desmond has been through this all before. If he could just get through to his mother, he could convince her that he doesn't belong at Brookline. From the man who thinks he can fly to the woman who killed her husband, the other patients are nothing like him; all he did was lose his temper just a little bit, just the once. But when Ricky is selected by the sinister Warden Crawford for a very special program - a program that the warden claims will not cure him but perfect him - Ricky realizes that he may not be able to wait for his mom a second longer.

Zoe Washington isn’t sure what to write. What does a girl say to the father she’s never met, hadn’t heard from until his letter arrived on her 12th birthday, and who’s been in prison for a terrible crime? A crime he says he never committed. Could Marcus really be innocent? Zoe is determined to uncover the truth. Even if it means hiding his letters and her investigation from the rest of her family. Everyone else thinks Zoe’s worrying about doing a good job at her bakery internship

Beneath heaven is hell. Beneath hell is Furnace. Furnace Penitentiary. The world's most secure prison for young offenders, buried a mile beneath the earth's surface. One way in, no way out. Once you're here, you're here until you die, and for most of the inmates that doesn't take long - not with the sadistic guards and the bloodthirsty gangs. Convicted of a murder he didn't commit, sentenced to life without parole, 'new fish' Alex Sawyer knows he has two choices: find a way out, or resign himself to a death behind bars.

Scott Lang, also known as Ant-Man, is just getting settled into his new home when his daughter is targeted by a villain and he must go back to crime-fighting to save her.

When Jenna Blake starts her freshman year at Somerset University, she's not only living on her own for the first time, she's moving closer to the father she never really knew. It's an exciting time, filled with new faces and new challenges, not to mention parties and boys and … corpses? Jenna is torn about her future. She'd like to be a doctor like her mother, but she can't stand the sight of blood. Her father, a criminology professor, thinks he has the answer—and sends her to interview for a job with the Medical Examiner—an interview that takes place in the middle of an autopsy!