TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of February 4, 1973

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1
SEMI-TOUGH
Dan Jenkins
Cover of SEMI-TOUGH

SEMI-TOUGH

by Dan Jenkins · Atheneum

17 wks on list

Commissioned to write a book, a leading player of the New York Giants records the events surrounding the impending Super Bowl game with the New York Jets.

5
THE PERSIAN BOY
Mary Renault
Cover of THE PERSIAN BOY

THE PERSIAN BOY

by Mary Renault · Pantheon

11 wks on list

"It takes skill to depict, as Miss Renault has done, this half-man, half Courtesan who is so deeply in love with the warrior."-"The Atlantic Monthly"The Persian Boy traces the last years of Alexander's life through the eyes of his lover, Bagoas. Abducted and gelded as a boy, Bagoas was sold as a courtesan to King Darius of Persia, but found freedom with Alexander after the Macedon army conquered his homeland. Their relationship sustains Alexander as he weathers assassination plots, the demands of two foreign wives, a sometimes-mutinous army, and his own ferocious temper. After Alexander's mysterious death, we are left wondering if this Persian boy understood the great warrior and his ambitions better than anyone.

6
THE CAMERONS
Robert Crichton

THE CAMERONS

by Robert Crichton · Alfred a Knopf

11 wks on list

Story of Maggie Drum, a woman from a bleak mining town in Scotland who wants to better her lot in life. She finds Gillon Cameron, poverty stricken but of noble lineage, and they plan to work and starve for 20 years, saving all their money, then buy a business and live like gentry. When Gillon is hurt in a mining accident and the owner refuses to compensate him, a rebellion breaks out among the miners.

8
THE EIGER SANCTION
Trevanian
Cover of THE EIGER SANCTION

THE EIGER SANCTION

by Trevanian · Crown

8 wks on list

Jonathan Hemlock lives in a renovated Gothic church on Long Island. He is an art professor, a mountain climber, and a mercenary, performing assassinations (i.e., sanctions) for money to augment his black-market art collection. Now Hemlock is being tricked into a hazardous assignment that involves an attempt to scale one of the most treacherous mountain peaks in the Swiss Alps, the Eiger. In a breathtakingly suspenseful story that is part thriller and part satire, the author traces Hemlock’s spine-tingling adventures, introducing a cast of intriguing characters—villains, traitors, beautiful women—into the highly charged atmosphere of danger. The accumulating threads of suspicion, accusation, and evidence gradually knit themselves into a bizarre and death-defying climax in this exciting, entertaining novel that will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the last absorbing page.

Historical bestseller data sourced from the New York Times Book Review, archived by Hawes Publications.