TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of March 17, 1974

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
Jump to
1
BURR
Gore Vidal
Cover of BURR

BURR

by Gore Vidal · Random House

21 wks at #1 · 18 on list
3
7
JAWS
Peter Benchley
Cover of JAWS

JAWS

by Peter Benchley · Doubleday

2 wks on list

"Relentless terror." The Philadelphia Inquirer.The classic, blockbuster thriller of man-eating terror that inspired the Steven Spielberg movie and made millions of beachgoers afraid to go into the water. Experience the thrill of helpless horror again -- or for the first time!From the Paperback edition.

5
2
THE HONORARY CONSUL
Graham Greene

THE HONORARY CONSUL

by Graham Greene · Simon & Schuster

24 wks on list

Set in a provincial Argentinean town, "The Honorary Consul" takes place in that bleak country of exhausted passion, betrayal, and absurd hope that Graham Greene has explored so precisely in such novels as "The Power and the Glory" and "The Comedians." On the far side of the great, muddy river that separates the two countries lies Paraguay, a brutal dictatorship shaken by sporadic revolutionary activity; on the near side, a torpid city whose only visible cultural institution is a brothel. The foreigners of the city are refugees, each washed up on the banks of the Parana by some inner disaster or defeat: Dr. Eduardo Plarr, a physician, whose English father has vanished into a Paraguayan prison, and for whom "caring is the only dangerous thing"; Humphries, a teacher of English, who has touched bottom and accepted it; Charley Fortnum, the Honorary Consul, who at the age of sixty-one, sustained by drink and his disputed status as British Consul, still retains enough hope and illusion to marry a twenty-year-old girl from Senora Sanchez' brothel... With gathering force, Graham Greene draws his characters into the political chaos that lies beneath the surface of South American life. Fortnum is kidnapped by Paraguayan revolutionaries who have mistaken him for the American Ambassador. Realizing their error, they threaten to execute him anyway if their demands are not met. Plarr, torn between his instinctive feeling for the revolutionaries -- one of whom is an old friend -- and his ambiguous relationship with Fortnum, whose wife he has taken as a lover, becomes involved in a tragicomedy that leads inexorably to a meaningless death. At the center of "The Honorary Consul" is Plarr, abrilliant Graham Greene creation, perhaps the most moving and convincing figure in his fiction. Plarr is a man so cut off from human feeling, so puzzled by the emotional needs of men like Fortnum, that he is paradoxically vulnerable, chillingly exposed, and required in the end Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

7
1
THE FIRST DEADLY SIN
Lawrence Sanders
Cover of THE FIRST DEADLY SIN

THE FIRST DEADLY SIN

by Lawrence Sanders · Putnam

21 wks on list

The #1 New York Times–bestselling author introduces readers to "a great detective, a detective's detective," New York cop Edward X. Delaney ( Kirkus Reviews). New York Police Department Captain Edward Delaney is called to the scene of a brutal murder. A Brooklyn councilman was struck from behind, the back of his skull punctured and crushed with an unknown weapon. The victim wasn't robbed, and there's no known motive. The commissioner appoints Delaney to head up a clandestine task force, but soon this effort ignites an internecine war of departmental backstabbing. Distracted by the serious illness of his wife, Barbara, Delaney begins his secret investigation. Then the killer claims another victim—slain in the exact same way, leaving the strange puncture wound. As more young men are found murdered, Delaney starts putting the pieces together. Soon, he's faced with a cop's dilemma: He knows who the killer is, but the man is untouchable. That's when Delaney lays a trap to bring a monster to justice . . .

9
NEW
I HEARD THE OWL CALL MY NAME
Margaret Craven
Cover of I HEARD THE OWL CALL MY NAME

I HEARD THE OWL CALL MY NAME

by Margaret Craven · Doubleday

2 wks on list

A young minister who has two years to live learns about the meaning of life when he is sent to an Indian parish in British Columbia. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

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