TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of October 26, 1997

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
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1
FLOOD TIDE
Clive Cussler
Cover of FLOOD TIDE

FLOOD TIDE

by Clive Cussler · Simon & Schuster

3 wks at #1 · 4 on list

Dirk Pitt faces one of his most formidable foes--a madman bent on killing hundreds of innocent men, women, and children with a catastrophic surge of mass destruction.

2
COLD MOUNTAIN
Charles Frazier
Cover of COLD MOUNTAIN

COLD MOUNTAIN

by Charles Frazier · Atlantic Monthly Press

16 wks on list

The impact of the Civil War on lovers. Inman is not the man he used to be, as wounded in battle he slowly makes his way home to North Carolina. His sweetheart, Ada, too has changed, no longer a flighty belle but a hard-working farm woman. Will love be the same?

4
2
THE ANGEL OF DARKNESS
Caleb Carr
Cover of THE ANGEL OF DARKNESS

THE ANGEL OF DARKNESS

by Caleb Carr · Random House

3 wks on list

In The Angel of Darkness, Caleb Carr brings back the vivid world of his bestselling The Alienist but with a twist: this story is told by the former street urchin Stevie Taggert, whose rough life has given him wisdom beyond his years. Thus New York City, and the groundbreaking alienist Dr. Kreizler himself, are seen anew. It is June 1897. A year has passed since Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a pioneer in forensic psychiatry, tracked down the brutal serial killer John Beecham with the help of a team of trusted companions and a revolutionary application of the principles of his discipline. Kreizler and his friends--high-living crime reporter John Schuyler Moore; indomitable, derringer-toting Sara Howard; the brilliant (and bickering) detective brothers Marcus and Lucius Isaacson; powerful and compassionate Cyrus Montrose; and Stevie Taggert, the boy Kreizler saved from a life of street crime--have returned to their former pursuits and tried to forget the horror of the Beecham case. But when the distraught wife of a Spanish diplomat begs Sara's aid, the team reunites to help find her kidnapped infant daughter. It is a case fraught with danger, since Spain and the United States are on the verge of war. Their investigation leads the team to a shocking suspect: a woman who appears to the world to be a heroic nurse and a loving mother, but who may in reality be a ruthless murderer of children. Once again, Caleb Carr proves his brilliant ability to re-create the past, both high life and low. As the horror unfolds, Delmonico's still serves up wondrous meals, and a summer trip to the elegant gambling parlors of Saratoga provides precious keys to the murderer's past. At the same time, we go onrevealing journeys into Stevie's New York, a place where poor and neglected children--then as now--turn to crime and drugs at shockingly early ages. Peppered throughout are characters taken from real life and rendered with historical vigor, including suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton; painter Albert Pinkham Ryder; and Clarence Darrow, who thunders for the defense in a tense courtroom drama during which the sanctity of American motherhood itself is put on trial. Fast-paced and chilling, The Angel of Darkness is a tour de force, a novel of modern evil in old New York.

6
1
UNDERWORLD
Don DeLillo
Cover of UNDERWORLD

UNDERWORLD

by Don DeLillo · Scribner

5 wks on list
7
TIMEQUAKE
Kurt Vonnegut
Cover of TIMEQUAKE

TIMEQUAKE

by Kurt Vonnegut · Putnam

3 wks on list
8
NEW
TEMPLE OF THE WINDS
Terry Goodkind
Cover of TEMPLE OF THE WINDS

TEMPLE OF THE WINDS

by Terry Goodkind · Tor/Doherty

1 wks on list

Everything Richard Rahl has learned will be for naught as the ruthless Emperor Jagang returns with his vast legions, heralded by a mustical plague that kills innocents in the thousands. Richard must now challenge the undefeatable: the magic that thwarts magic, sealed away for three thousand years in the Temple of the Winds.

9
2
NIGHT PASSAGE
Robert B. Parker
Cover of NIGHT PASSAGE
11
2
THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS
Arundhati Roy
Cover of THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS

THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS

by Arundhati Roy · Random House

11 wks on list

The story of an Indian family during the 1969 Communist disturbances in Kerala province. It is told through the eyes of a boy and his sister who are the children of a rich rubber planter. Politics, family drama, illicit love. A debut in fiction.

13
NEW
REIGN IN HELL
William Diehl
Cover of REIGN IN HELL

REIGN IN HELL

by William Diehl · Ballantine

1 wks on list

William Diehl stunned readers with Primal Fear and Show of Evil, the national bestsellers featuring Chicago lawyer Martin Vail. Now, in his gripping new novel of suspense, Diehl enters uncharted territory, pushing Vail and the legal system he represents to the brink of destruction. After an ultra-right-wing militia seizes truckloads of highly volatile weapons, the president turns to Illinois attorney general Martin Vail. His job: nail the terrorists in their tracks. Vail plunges into his new, near-impossible mission, one that soon explodes into a personal nightmare as his most chilling adversary, Aaron Stampler, returns--seemingly from the dead--to exact a vengeance that could bring Vail to his knees. . . .

15
NEW
THE LETTER
Richard Paul Evans
Cover of THE LETTER

THE LETTER

by Richard Paul Evans · Simon & Schuster

The love story of David and MaryAnne Parkin and the storms that their relationship must face when the blissful state of romance vanishes into real-life challenges and difficulties.

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