Narrator Jack and his mother, who was kidnapped seven years earlier when she was a 19-year-old college student, celebrate his fifth birthday. They live in a tiny, 11-foot-square soundproofed cell in a converted shed in the kidnapper's yard. The sociopath, whom Jack has dubbed Old Nick, visits at night, grudgingly doling out food and supplies. But Ma, as Jack calls her, proves to be resilient and resourceful--and attempts a nail-biting escape.

"Patric Gagne realized she made others uncomfortable before she started kindergarten. Something about her caused people to react in a way she didn't understand. She suspected it was because she didn't feel things the way other kids did. Emotions like fear, guilt, and empathy eluded her. For the most part, she felt nothing. And she didn't like the way that "nothing" felt. She did her best to pretend she was like everyone else, but the constant pressure...

"On the outside, Dr. Jeremy Balint is a pillar of the community: the youngest division chief at his hospital, a model son to his elderly parents, fiercely devoted to his wife and two young daughters. On the inside, Dr. Jeremy Balint is a high-functioning sociopath--a man who truly believes himself to stand above the ethical norms of society. As long as life treats him well, Balint has no cause to harm others. When life treats him poorly, he reveals...

"In the bestselling tradition of The Psychopath Test and The Sociopath Next Door, a compelling journey into the science and behavior of psychopaths in our lives, written by the leading scientist in the field of criminal psychopathy. Kent A. Kiehl, who created the Mind Mobil MRI System to study psychopaths in prison populations, has collected the world's largest repository of forensic neuroscience, with scans of more than five hundred psychopaths and...

"Food critic Dorothy Daniels loves what she does. Discerning, meticulous, and very, very smart, Dorothy's clear mastery of the culinary arts make it likely that she could, on any given night, whip up a more inspired dish than any one of the chefs she writes about. Dorothy loves sex as much as she loves food, and while she has struggled to find a long-term partner that can keep up with her, she makes the best of her single life, frequently traveling...

While on the trail of a stolen relic, P.I. Dana Cutler is called back to Virginia where she must stop Charles Benedict, a criminal defense lawyer, amateur illusionist, and professional hitman, from framing a millionaire for the murder of his much younger wife.

When an unknown attacker is injured in the process of his capture, ER chief David Spier is ostracized for treating the man, a situation that is further complicated when the assailant escapes, prompting Spier to delve into his own past.

The cunning schemes of a young American ne'er-do-well, who travels to Italy on an unusual assignment.

He shops at your local supermarket. He drives beside you, waving to let you into the lane ahead of him. He also has an elaborate cage in a secret basement under his garage. The food he's carefully shopping for is to feed a young woman he's holding there against her will -- one in a string of many, unaware of the fate that awaits her. This is how it's been for a long time. It's normal... and it works. Perfectly. But this time it's different.