Unable to express himself socially, but possessing a savant-like knack for investigating crimes, a teenage boy with Asperger's Syndrome is wrongly accused of killing his tutor when the police mistake his autistic tics for guilty behavior.

Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala investigate the smoldering hulk of a NUMA research vessel in the Indian Ocean and soon uncover an audacious scheme to permanently alter the weather on a global scale, killing millions.

The events of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein unfold from the perspective of Elizabeth Lavenza, who is adopted as a child by the Frankensteins as a companion for their volatile son Victor. Elizabeth Lavenza has been starved and beaten by her "caregiver" until she is brought to the home of Victor Frankenstein, an unsmiling, solitary boy who has everything-- except a friend. To escape from misery, Elizabeth does everything she can to make herself indispensable....

Reflections of a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor who lectured on "Really achieving your childhood dreams," shortly after having been diagnosed with terminal cancer. His advice concerned seizing the moment while living, rather than dying.