Is it nature or nurture? Was one of the world's cruelest serial killers created by his surroundings, or was he born that way? Get ready to go on a dark and chilling journey through the mind and actions of one of the world's cruelest serial killers ever - Carl Panzram. Born on a dying farm and soon abandoned by his father, Carl Panzram's life was bleak from the start. While other children played and went to school, he toiled away on his family's land, the threat of brutal punishment always looming over his head. Yet instead of shaping him into the meek, obedient boy his family wanted, Panzram grew meaner with each passing year. His first arrest happened before he had even turned ten. The young troublemaker would soon find himself at the mercy of cruel teachers, pastors, and jailers alike. They tried to beat goodness and religion into him but ended up kicking all the goodness out. When he broke free, he only had one goal in life: to cause as much pain and suffering as he could. Find out what made this cold-blooded killer so wicked and how he earned the nickname "the Human Animal." Draw your own conclusions as you take a peek inside the devious mind of Carl Panzram. CAUTION: True Crime Explicit is a series that contains descriptive accounts of abuse and violence. If you are especially sensitive to graphic content, it is advisable to avoid this series.

Born a slave to an alien corporation, Susan Singh escaped with the help of a politician who would shape the young girl into a deadly force of human vengeance. Alien factions are tearing down the walls of human civilization. Men and women struggle to survive in a universe where humankind is considered an inferior species to all other sentient life. Leslie Folami presides over a clandestine council of world leaders bent on establishing the respect humanity deserves, even if it means starting a war that they cannot win. Unknown to her peers, Folami has sent her assassin on a perilous mission that might give them a fighting chance. Raised as a secret tool for Folami's political schemes, Susan was trained in the ways of the Enforcers from the past, taught to harness the shadow to her will and live as death incarnate. A decade passed under Folami's tutelage before Susan was given the assignment she had been waiting for, revenge on the alien menace plaguing her home world and a chance to free her family.

In The Revenge of Gaia , bestselling author James Lovelock- father of climate studies and originator of the influential Gaia theory which views the entire earth as a living meta-organism-provides a definitive look at our imminent global crisis. In this disturbing new book, Lovelock guides us toward a hard reality: soon, we may not be able to alter the oncoming climate crisis. Lovelock's influential Gaia theory, one of the building blocks of modern climate science, conceives of the Earth, including the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere and upper layers of rock, as a single living super-organism, regulating its internal environment much as an animal regulates its body temperature and chemical balance. But now, says Lovelock, that organism is sick. It is running a fever born of the combination of a sun whose intensity is slowly growing over millions of years, and an atmosphere whose greenhouse gases have recently spiked due to human activity. Earth will adjust to these stresses, but on time scales measured in the hundreds of millennia. It is already too late, Lovelock says, to prevent the global climate from "flipping" into an entirely new equilibrium state that will leave the tropics uninhabitable, and force migration to the poles. The Revenge of Gaia explains the stress the planetary system is under and how humans are contributing to it, what the consequences will be, and what humanity must do to rescue itself.

The body of Bernice Hogan, a troubled young former nursing student with a tragic past, is found in a shallow grave near a forest creek. Jolene Peller, a single mom struggling to build a new life with her little boy, vanishes the night she tries to find Bernice. Hero cop Karl Styebeck is beloved by his community, but privately police are uneasy with the answers he gives to protect the life--and the lie--he's lived. The case haunts Jack Gannon, a gritty, blue-collar reporter whose own sister ran away from their family years ago. Gannon risks more than his job to pursue the story behind Styebeck's dark secret, his link to the women, and the mysterious big rig roaming America's loneliest highways on its descent into eternal darkness.

How do humans stop fighting? Where do the gods of myth come from? What does it mean to go mad? Mark R. Anspach tackles these and other conundrums as he draws on ethnography, literature, psychotherapy, and the theory of René Girard to explore some of the fundamental mechanisms of human interaction. Likening gift exchange to vengeance in reverse, the first part of the book outlines a fresh approach to reciprocity, while the second part traces the emergence of transcendence in collective myths and individual delusions. From the peacemaking rituals of prestate societies to the paradoxical structure of consciousness, Anspach takes the reader on an intellectual journey that begins with the problem of how to deceive violence and ends with the riddle of how one can deceive oneself.

There is no mercy in the demon realm. No escape. In this place of desperation and conflict, anyone who is not pure bred is virtually powerless. Until an unlikely champion is born... Annika, half-blood daughter of the Na'Reish King, longs for more than her tormented life among her father's people. Conceived in hatred and bred as a tool of retribution, she's gifted with a special talent that can heal as well as destroy... With the Na'Reish vastly outnumbering them, Kalan, a Light Blade warrior, knows the future of humankind depends on him alone. Incursions into human territory and raids for blood-slaves by the Na'Reish Horde have increased. As Chosen-leader, he faces the task of stopping the demons-and convincing the Council of aging Light Blade warriors that change is necessary for survival. When Annika learns Kalan is a prisoner in her father's dungeon, her dream of escape seems within reach. She agrees to free him in exchange for his protection once they reach human territory. Now, marked for death for helping him, Annika must learn to trust Kalan as they face not only the perilous journey to the border but enemies within the Council-and discover a shocking truth that could throw the human race into civil war...

"The vengeance of mothers" explores the bonds among family and community, the search for identity and belonging, during a time of tumultous change in our nation's history. What is a "native" American? Are all men and their wives created equal? How far wil Margaret and her countrywomen go to fight for what's theirs, and what's already gone?