National Network for Equitable Library Service

The Color of Night is a skillfully woven true crime account of a horrendous crime, a family's quest for answers, and the landmark case that tested the Federal Death Penalty Act. Nineteen-year-old Rachel Timmerman, who was about to testify against the man who had raped her, disappeared with her toddler daughter, Shannon. A month later, Rachel's body was discovered in a lake chained to cinde blocks and with her eyes and mouth covered in duct tape. Soon a trail of bodies begins to emerge.

It began as a robbery. A man dressed as a phone repairman knocked on the door of coin collector Ed Davies. Once inside, the stranger pulled a gun on Ed and his wife, Grace, handcuffed and hogtied the couple and opened the door for his partner. After filling six suitcases with silver and gold coins, they fatally shot Davies in the head twice and his wife once, then fled. Hours later, with a bullet lodged in her head, Grace crawled out to the sidewalk where a neighbor found her. Eventually the killers were found, tried and convicted of murder.

Spotlighting sensational murder cases as well as his representation of the Olympic and Birmingham bomber, Eric Rudolph, here is the story of Richard Jaffe, the most successful attorney ever at exonerating innocent people accused of murder and wrongfully sentenced death row inmates. Join Jaffe, a commentator during the O.J. Simpson trials and frequent guest on NPR, CNN and NBC. Follow him as he learns the truth about savage capital crimes, then through tense courtroom trials as he advocates for those who are literally fighting for their lives.

Jane Wells was trapped in a nightmare. The man she married was an abusive, philandering maniac. The courts knew this, but because of a Kentucky law that forbids pregnant women to divorce, she was forced to endure a living hell. After Jane gave birth to her daughter, she entered a battered women's shelter, filed charges against Michael, and sued for divorce. Fate finally seemed to smile down on her when her first husband, her childhood sweetheart, reappeared offering his help.

Billy Chase could be killed at any moment. He is arguably the finest undercover cop fighting drugs. His record speaks for itself: He's put away many big-time dealers and even infiltrated the Gambino crime family. They want him dead, and if the drug gangs don't get him, his fellow law enforcement officers may. Billy Chase is black and has been mistaken for the very criminal element that he's after. Billy Chase is on the run. The hunter has literally become the hunted as he has risen to the top of the drug world's Most Wanted List. Death threats are common.

Petite and feisty, Pam Phree, founder of Phree Bail Bonds, is one of the first female bail bonds agents in a male dominated field, partnered with Mike Beakley, an insightful, quick-witted, former narcotics officer, bounty hunter they take on the underground world of prostitution, drug dealers, AIDS, organized crime and murder while fighting to make changes and dispelling the myths about the bail bond industry in Betrayal, Murder and Greed: The True Story of a Bounty Hunter and a Bail Bond Agent. Truth and reality are more frightening and fascinating than fiction.

The future looks bright for 23-year-old Ivrin Bolden Jr. The promising premed student at Northeast Louisiana University is engaged to classmate Joel Tillis, a member of the NLU women's basketball team. Bolden, though, is an unwitting member of a love triangle: Tillis is also involved with teammate Brenda Spicer. When Spicer's mutilated body is found in a dumpster, Bolden is arrested and brought to trial. Tillis supports her fiancE with an alibi, a decision she quickly comes to regret.

When investigators were called to the secluded farm of attractive, fortyish Sheila LaBarre, they found the dismembered and incinerated remains of her young lover, a man with a child's I.Q. A series of young men had come and gone from the farm over the years, all seeming to vanish into thin air. Now LaBarre was on the run. Eventually she would be caught and would plead insanity. But was she indeed insane'an "avenging angel sent to kill pedophiles," as she claimed'or a vicious, calculating serial killer' Wicked Intentions explores the case in depth, from investigation to trial.

Robbert Sabbag's Snowblind, the true story of an American smuggler whose intricate, ingenious scams made him a legendary figure in the cocaine world of the late sixties and early seventies, is a modern classic. In this "witty, intelligent, fiercely stylish, drug-induced exemplary tale" (Los Angeles Times), Sabbag masterfully traces Zachary Swan's Roman-candle career, from his first forays into smuggling marijuana to his jaunts to Colombia to buy pure cocaine, and his ever more elaborate plans to outwit the police and customs officials.

Killing Pablo is the story of the fifteen-month manhunt for Colombian cocaine cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar, whose escape from his lavish, mansionlike jail drove a nation to the brink of chaos. In a gripping, up-close account, acclaimed journalist Mark Bowden exposes the never-before-revealed details of how U.S. military and intelligence operatives covertly led the mission to find and kill the world's most dangerous outlaw.