The phrase most wanted conjures up thoughts of an FBI poster showing a grim-looking desperado whose face can be studied by post office patrons while they wait in line to mail a package or buy a stamp. Whether they have won such an official designation or not, all of those whose stories appear in this book have been prime targets of authorities eager to bring them to justice. The kinds of acts such felons have committed - bombings, bank robberies, multiple murders, kidnappings, for instance - are deemed to pose especially serious threats to law and order and to society's well-being. But it isn't just the nature of their crimes that defines the most wanted. To earn such a designation, a person must successfully avoid capture for a period of time, in spite of the most strenuous efforts of lawmen. In the classic scenario, as in most of the stories in this book, the authorities are a hunting party and the criminal is the quarry, the man on the run, and the action is spun out over weeks or months.