"One moonlit night, fourteen-year-old Reena Virk went to join friends at a party and never returned home ... Godfrey takes us into the hidden world of the seven teenage girls--and boy--accused of a savage murder"--Back cover.

Elmer Wayne Henley, Jr. was only fourteen when he first became entangled with serial rapist and murderer Dean Corll in 1971. Fellow Houston, Texas, teenager David Brooks had already been ensnared by the charming older man, bribed with cash to help lure boys to Corll's home. When Henley unwittingly entered the trap, Corll evidently sensed he'd be of more use as a second accomplice than another victim. He baited Henley with the same deal he'd given...

"All the admirals in the US Navy knew Leonard Glenn Francis--either personally or by his legendary reputation. He was the larger-than-life defense contractor who greeted them on the pier whenever they visited ports in Asia, ready to show them a good time after weeks at sea while his company resupplied their ships and submarines. He was famed throughout the fleet for the gluttonous parties he hosted for officers: $1,000-per-person dinners at Asia's...

"Recently ghosted and sick of watching her friends fade into the suburbs with their husbands and children, thirty-something Hannah finds new community in an internet true crime forum that's on a mission to solve the murders of four women who were dumped in a ravine outside Atlanta. When a handsome lawyer named William is arrested for the killings, with evidence of his guilt piling up as quickly as the bodies, Hannah begins writing him letters as another...

"Before the sensational cases of Amanda Knox and Casey Anthony--before even Lizzie Borden--there was Polly Bodine, the first American woman put on trial for capital murder in our nation's debut media circus. On Christmas night, December 25, 1843, in a serene village on Staten Island, shocked neighbors discovered the burnt remains of twenty-four-year-old mother Emeline Houseman and her infant daughter, Ann Eliza. In a perverse nativity, someone bludgeoned...

The search for justice for this one man's death--his body found in broad daylight, with tape over his eyes, an undisguised hit--would deliver more than the truth. It exposed his status as an informant and led to protests, campaigns, far-reaching changes to British law, a historic ruling from a senior judicial body, a ground-breaking police investigation, and bitter condemnation from a US Congressional commission. And there have been persistent rumors...

"When Lauren Spierer-a gregarious young woman at a crossroads in her life-vanished from Indiana University in 2011, her story drew global attention from celebrities and news outlets such as People magazine, CNN, Fox News, and USA Today. What made the case so confounding to those outlets was that the 20-year-old was out with dozens of classmates in a bustling university town on the night she went missing. She was seen in public by witnesses and security...