Small Sacrifices

The story of an Oregon woman convicted of shooting her three children, killing one, in 1983.

Small Sacrifices is an ethnographic study of Ngaju Dayaks, rain forest dwellers of the remote interior region of Central Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. Like many indigenous peoples throughout the world, the Ngaju have recently been affected by exposure to world religions, by improvements in transportation and communication, by new demands on family-based production, and by other factors pertaining to their growing incorporation into an expanding state system in an era of rapid political and economic change. The Ngaju response to these pressures, Anne Schiller contends, is most clearly seen in the religious sphere. Over the past two decades, many Ngaju have taken to recasting and reinterpreting their indigenous religion, known formerly as Kaharingan, and now as Hindu Kaharingan. Paradoxically, this process of religious change involves the codification of religious belief and the standardization of ritual. It also includes efforts to distinguish "religious practices" from other "customs." These developments figure importantly in the construction of modern Ngaju identity. The author focuses especially on the form and content of tiwah, an elaborate ritual of secondary treatment of the dead, with multiple and complex meanings for Hindu Kaharingan Ngaju, as well as for those who have converted to Christianity or Islam.

At eighteen, Brian Clark is ready to leave Akron Ohio and attend college at Ohio State. But when his parents are killed in a car accident, Brian remains in Akron to raise his twelve-year-old brother Tommy. Instead of getting his degree in business, Brian spends years working two jobs to provide for Tommys upbringing. At twenty, Brian falls in love with Pamela Carlyle, a gentle but strong-hearted girl who makes his family whole again. But when she gets pregnant four years later, Brian refuses to put his life on hold again. He goes to school out of state, leaving Pam behind, but guilt drives him to drink and self-destruct. After he pulls himself together, he wonders if he can reclaim his family.

A shocking chronicle of greed, sexual obsession, manipulation, and murder--from the bestselling author of Small Sacrifices. Computer wizard David Brown convinced his own daughter to prove her love by killing his new wife. Brown then collected a large insurance policy and married his dead wife's teenage sister, whom he had secretly taught to perform sex acts since she was eleven years old. Photographs.

Be careful what you wish for. She wanted to be famous. But not like this. Ellen Gibson always dreamed of being a star. At a young age those dreams were shattered. Discovering she holds the winning ticket in a 55-million Powerball jackpot, Ellen sees it as her opportunity to be in the limelight. But at what cost? Detective Inspector India Hargreaves and her small team are called in to investigate the disappearance of five- year-old Joshua Gibson, but the investigation is taken over by the big guns from Police Headquarters when it turns out to be a kidnapping. When the media and the lead investigator suspect Ellen of being behind the kidnapping, her fame disintegrates into a nightmare and she seems powerless to stop events spiralling out of control …

From bestselling author Ann Rule comes the true story of Bradly Morris Cunningham, the handsome and successful entrereneur who married five different women and destroyed each of them. The author of eight New York Times bestsellers, Ann Rule first won nationwide acclaim with The Stranger Beside Me, about serial killer Ted Bundy. Her Crime Files volumes, based on fascinating case histories, have assured her reputation as our premier chronicler of crime. Now the former Seattle policewoman brings us the horrific account of a charismatic man adored by beautiful and brilliant women who always gave him what he wanted...sex, money, and even their very lives. When attorney Cheryl Keeton's brutally bludgeoned body was found in her van in the fast lane of an Oregon freeway, her husband, Brad Cunningham, was the likely suspect. But there was no solid evidence linking him to the crime. He married again, for the fifth time, and his stunning new wife, a physician named Sara, adopted his three sons. They all settled down to family life on a luxurious estate. But gradually, their marriage became a nightmare... In this gripping account of Cheryl's murder, Ann Rule takes us from Brad's troubled boyhood to one of the most bizarre trials in legal history, uncovering multiple marriages, financial manipulations, infidelities, and monstrous acts of harassment and revenge along the way. Dead By Sunset is Ann Rule at her riveting best.

Since its initial publication and multiple reprints in hardcover in 2005, Teachers Have It Easy has attracted the attention of teachers nationwide, appearing on the New York Times extended bestseller list, C-SPAN, and NPR's Marketplace, in additio...

What did a lifeless body found floating in the Pacific Ocean, an unused plane ticket from 1978, and a psychic’s bizarre dreams have to do with the mysterious death of Supriti Love? As a fiction writer, Timber embarks on a mission to unravel the truth, which is why she travels to the lush vineyards of CastleVine Wineries in Napa Valley. But sometimes the truth does not set you free. Instead, she finds herself trapped in a world of lies, deceit, and unimaginable horror. Can she escape, or will she end up being the victim in the world stranger than the fiction she writes? Who can she trust, and what will she need to sacrifice in order to get out alive? Is her fate already sealed, destined to be the next Ms. Love?