Violet Minturn, a half-Chinese/half-American courtesan who deals in seduction and illusion in Shanghai, struggles to find her place in the world, while her mother, Lucia, tries to make sense of the choices she has made and the men who have shaped her.

"Four friends, recent college graduates, caught in a terrible job market, joke about turning to kidnapping to survive. And then, suddenly, it's no joke. For two years, the strategy they devise--quick, efficient, low risk--works like a charm. Until they kidnap the wrong man. Now two groups they've very much wanted to avoid are after them--the law, in the form of veteran state investigator Kirk Stevens and hotshot young FBI agent Carla Windermere, and...

"A school under siege. A shooter in the classroom. An all too common American nightmare unleashed again. But this time, former Delta Captain Jake Mahegan happens to be on the schoolgrounds checking in on the daughter of a colleague. Instead he's staring down a suicidal gunman rigged to blow. During the standoff another attack begins outside the school. The gunman goes down, Mahegan is knocked unconscious, and a twelve-year-old autistic girl is kidnapped....

Liz Daniels has every reason to be happy about setting off on a family vacation. Instead, she feels uneasy. On their way, the family stops at a hotel. In the morning, Liz checks on her sleeping children but they are gone. Liz realizes that it was no stranger who took her children. Someone she trusted completely has betrayed her and she will stop at nothing to get them back. Liz follows the threads of a terrible secret to uncover a hidden world created...

"One year ago, Isabelle Drake's life changed forever: her toddler son, Mason, was taken out of his crib in the middle of the night while she and her husband were asleep in the next room. With little evidence and few leads for the police to chase, the case quickly went cold. However, Isabelle cannot rest until Mason is returned to her--literally. Except for the occasional catnap or small blackout where she loses track of time, she hasn't slept in...

When Clara vanishes after the puppeteer Grisini and two orphaned assistants were at her twelfth birthday party, suspicion of kidnapping chases the trio away from London and soon the two orphans are caught in a trap set by Grisini's ancient rival, a witch with a deadly inheritance to shed before it is too late.

Living on her family's gorgeous lakeside estate in Cornwall, England, Alice Edevane is a bright, clever, inquisitive, innocent, and precociously talented fourteen-year-old who loves to write stories. One midsummer's eve, after a beautiful party drawing hundreds of guests to the estate has ended, the Edevanes discover that their youngest son, Theo, has vanished without a trace. What follows is a tragedy that tears the family apart, leaving their estate...

"When Worm, a young orphan boy who works at the local clinic, sees Eloise being kidnapped by two men in the days leading up to Christmas, he immediately recruits Squeaky Robinson to help rescue her. But as they track Eloise down, they're surprised to hear that she does not, in fact, wish to be rescued. Instead, Eloise intends to bring the kidnappers, who drew her father into their shady business deals and then murdered him, to justice. The kidnappers...

When Felix Brewer meets Bernadette "Bambi" Gottschalk at a Valentine's Dance in 1959, he charms her with wild promises, some of which he actually keeps. Thanks to his lucrative--if not all legal--businesses, she and their three little girls live in luxury. But on the Fourth of July, 1976, Bambi's comfortable world implodes when Felix, newly convicted and facing prison, mysteriously vanishes. Though Bambi has no idea where her husband--or his money--might...

When American doctor Julia Gallo is kidnapped in Afghanistan, the terms of her ransom leave the president with only one course of action: send covert counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath to free the man the kidnappers demand as ransom--al-Qaeda mastermind, Mustafa Khan.