True Girl

As Australia sank into the darkest days of the Great Depression, a succession of bloody mysteries grabbed headlines and gripped the country. The Hammer Horror, The Bungendore Bones, The Park Demon, The Human Glove and The Pyjama Girl—these were just some of the grisly cases that had to be solved by the Sydney detectives of The Murder Squad. The Murder Squad reopens the files on Australia's most chilling forgotten crimes to ask who was guilty, who was innocent, and whether some cops were as dangerous as the monsters they were hunting.

In the early dawn hours of September 8, 1939, 10-year-old Dina Frydman sits at her bedroom window, watching storm clouds blacken the horizon. Nightmares have kept her awake all night. She hears a distant rumble as the tanks roll into Radom. The Nazis have conquered Poland and nothing will ever be the same. Dina and her family prepare for the worst. But they could never imagine what the worst would be.

Pink Jade is a touching and inspiring chronicle of a young Vietnamese girl and her family's life during the turmoil preceding and following the Vietnam War. It speaks to her journey to find peace and love after escaping the horrors of war-torn Vietnam. Sharing the trauma of forced displacement and the difficulties and uncertainty of what would come next, the author invites listeners to walk with her, as she and her family relocate her lost father and start a new life with a new direction.

The daughter of a seamstress and a cobbler, Jeanne Villepreux-Power began her career as a dressmaker, sewing beautiful gowns for the Parisian aristocracy. But her heart longed for more, and when she moved to the seaside, she became fascinated by the ocean's mysteries.

Shattered Justice, bearing the title chosen by Paul Smith (Sheriff of Mayes County, OK, from 1981 to 1985), describes Smith’s squelched efforts to get justice for three little Girl Scouts murdered deep in the woods just outside Locust Grove, OK, on June 13, 1977. Lori Farmer, 8, Doris “Denise” Milner, 10, and Michelle Gusé, 9, were bludgeoned and strangled while sharing a tent during their first night of summer camp.

Three harrowing tales of three teenage girls who left behind a trail of murder and mayhem.

Sex. Lies. Romance. Love. My life has it all. I do what I want, when I want and no one can stop me. This isn't a story of how I found my prince. Or my how my prince found me. I'm that girl that everyone wants to hate, but they don't know my story. This is my chance to let everyone know the real me. The shocks in my life. The highs in my life. The lows in my life. I had a lover and a friends with benefits when I met the man I thought was 'The One'. Only thing is he had a bigger secret than I did. I sure didn't see that coming.

Shirley Wolf and Cindy Collier met in a juvenile detention center and had known each other for only a few hours when they decided to escape and randomly kill a stranger. They would go to a senior condominium center in Auburn, California, where they would seek an elderly victim. They would find one in the 85-year-old Anna Brackett. They entered her home under the ruse that they needed to use the phone to call their parents.

Mary "Mae" Foley was a force to be reckoned with. On one hip she held her makeup compact, on the other, her NYPD badge. When women were fighting for the vote, Mae was fighting crime in the heart of New York City—taking down rapists, bootleggers, Nazis, and serial killers. One of the first women to be sworn into the police force, Mae not only fought crime in the city that never sleeps, but also did something much bigger—challenged the patriarchal systems that continually tried to shut her and other women down.

The picture didn't fit. On the surface, Alyssa Bustamante was a pretty 15-year-old girl who excelled in school. Behind closed doors, however, Alyssa was a deeply disturbed teenager with fantasies about killing someone. Her social media pages and diaries all painted the portrait of someone with an insatiable to desire to inflict pain onto the world. Her murderous impulses increasing by the day, Alyssa dug two graves in the woods outside her home and waited...waited for the perfect victim.

In 1992, 12-year-old Shanda Sharer was tortured and killed by four teenage girls, led by Melinda Loveless. Caught in a lesbian love triangle, the four girls would torture the young Shanda and burn her alive. The case would shock the picture-sque town in southern Indiana and make national headlines, making an entire nation ask, "why"?

On a cold night in December 1956, two young girls mysteriously vanished after a night at the movies on the Southwest Side of Chicago, beginning one of the greatest searches to ever take place in the history of the city. Three weeks later, the bodies of the two lost girls, Barbara and Patricia Grimes, were found on the side of a secluded, snow-covered road, miles from where they disappeared. The discovery of their battered corpses created one of the greatest unsolved mysteries to ever baffle post-war America. Where had the girls been for the past three weeks?

The last dragons in the kingdom were killed a half century ago. At least that’s what twelve-year-old Eliana has grown up hearing. Imagine her surprise when one morning in the forest she finds herself eye-to-eye with a young dragon. When she learns the dragon’s father has been missing since the last full moon, she vows to help.

Recruited by the US Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than 10,000 women served as codebreakers during World War II. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them. A strict vow of secrecy nearly erased their efforts from history; now, through dazzling research and interviews with surviving code girls, best-selling author Liza Mundy brings to life this riveting and vital story of American courage, service, and scientific accomplishment.

Cassandra Petit-Charles is not your average preacher’s kid. She carries a gun and takes on Boston’s underbelly. She is an “extraction specialist” and her job is relocating kids who have gotten entangled in street life. Helping at-risk youth feels like penance for Cassie’s wild younger years and she’s at peace with living for each new day’s adventure, even if her family think she’s stuck in the past and afraid of the future. Then, the past returns.

Expanded and updated with a new epilogue, Madeleine Blais’ book tells the story of a season in the life of the Amherst Lady Hurricanes, a girls’ high school basketball team from the Western Massachusetts college town. The Hurricanes were a talented team with a near-perfect record, but for five straight years, when it came to the crunch of the playoffs, they somehow lacked the desire to go all the way. Now, led by senior guards Jen Pariseau, a three-point specialist, and Jamila Wideman, an All-American phenom, this was the year to prove themselves.

A father kills his three young children and his wife and impersonates a disgraced journalist. Oregon's most famous murderer explains how her jail breaks show she's ready for parole.

The only thing Charlotte loves as much as ballet is Christmas. So, when she gets the opportunity to play Marie in the New York City Ballet's The Nutcracker, she leaps at the chance. Dancing takes practice - hours of adjusting her arms and perfecting her jumps. With the help of her Trinidadian and Filipino families, encouragement from her sister, and a view of her mom and dad in the audience, Charlotte finds the strength to never give up.

Writer Karen Walker knows more than most about murderers. Her first love went on to become The Bagman, a notorious serial killer now locked away for life in a maximum-security prison. Karen has spent her life running from the weight of having loved him, defended him and, ultimately, leading the police to his door. But now, ten years later, just as she’s about to publish her account of his crimes, a young woman is abducted in horribly familiar circumstances. It can’t be The Bagman…can it? He’s safely behind bars, thanks to her. But she has to know for sure.

The scrap of folded paper weighed heavy in Saskia’s pocket. The Nazi guards were patrolling the streets in ever-increasing numbers and every time she passed one on her bicycle she felt herself tense. The note she held told a story of unbelievable courage. The Nazis wanted the prisoners to give up hope inside the camp but Saskia was smuggling letters to them from their loved ones, giving them a reason to survive.