Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. But there are an awful lot of holes. It doesn't...

Twelve-year-old Jonathan Grisby has been sent to the Slabhenge Reformatory School for Troubled Boys, a former lunatic asylum which is currently run by a sadist who enjoys punishing the boys and setting them against each other; but when a lightning strike kills all the adults the boys find themselves suddenly free--and trapped on Scar Island which seems to be sinking into the ocean.

Police investigating an exploded boat on a San Pedro pier discover 27 bodies and $91 million worth of drug money. The only survivors are a severely burned Hungarian terrorist and Roger Kint, a crippled con-man. Reluctantly, Kint is pressured into explaining what happened on the boat. His story begins six weeks earlier with five criminals being dragged in by New York police desperate for suspects in a truck highjacking, and ends with the possible identification...

"When privileged white sixteen-year-old Cindra is sent to a reform camp in Montana, she becomes transfixed by Lucky, a mysterious camp employee. As the connection between them grows, Lucky and Cindra become lovers and escape into the Rocky Mountains to create an idyllic life, living off Lucky's vast knowledge of the wilderness. But they can run from the outside world for only so long, and the consequences of their naïve fantasy of a future together...

Chronicles the life of George Washington Appo, a career criminal who served as leader of New York's underworld in Gilded Age New York and describes the social, economic, and cultural atmosphere of the city during his life.