TheBestseller
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Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of March 13, 2005

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1
HONEYMOON
James Patterson and Howard Roughan
Cover of HONEYMOON

HONEYMOON

by James Patterson and Howard Roughan · Little, Brown

4 wks at #1 · 2 on list

A walk down the aisle, a resort hotel, a drink on the beach...for these unlucky couples, the honeymoon's over. A newlywed couple steps into the sauna in their deluxe honeymoon suite--and never steps out again. When another couple is killed while boarding their honeymoon flight to Rome, it becomes clear that someone is targeting honeymooners, and it's anyone's guess which happy couple is next on the list. FBI Agent John O'Hara is deep into solving the case, while Special Agent Sarah Brubaker is hunting another ingenious serial killer, whose victims all have one chilling thing in common. As wedding hysteria rises to a frightening new level, John and Sarah work ever more closely together in a frantic attempt to decipher the logic behind two rampages. SECOND HONEYMOON is James Patterson's most mesmerizing, most exciting, and most surprising thriller ever.

2
THE BROKER
John Grisham
Cover of THE BROKER

THE BROKER

by John Grisham · Doubleday

7 wks on list

In his final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world’s most sophisticated satellite surveillance system. Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive—there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him?

3
THE DA VINCI CODE
Dan Brown
Cover of THE DA VINCI CODE

THE DA VINCI CODE

by Dan Brown · Doubleday

102 wks on list

THE #1 WORLDWIDE BESTSELLING PHENOMENON, WITH MORE THAN 85 MILLION COPIES SOLD “Blockbuster perfection . . . a gleefully erudite suspense novel.” —The New York Times “A pulse-quickening, brain-teasing adventure.” —People While in Paris, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is awakened by a phone call in the dead of the night. The elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum, his body covered in baffling symbols. As Langdon and gifted French cryptologist Sophie Neveu sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci—clues visible for all to see and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter. Even more startling, the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion, a secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, and he guarded a breathtaking historical secret. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle—while avoiding the faceless adversary who shadows their every move—the explosive, ancient truth will be lost forever. Robert Langdon returns in The Lost Symbol, Inferno, Origin, and The Secret of Secrets (coming soon)!

4
THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN
Mitch Albom
Cover of THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN

THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN

by Mitch Albom · Hyperion

75 wks on list

Plot Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him, as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here" Personal Details Collection Status In Collection Index 10 Read It Yes Links Amazon US Product Details LoC Classification PS3601.L335F59 2003 Dewey 813/.6

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SURVIVOR IN DEATH
J. D. Robb
Cover of SURVIVOR IN DEATH

SURVIVOR IN DEATH

by J. D. Robb · Putnam

4 wks on list

Lieutenant Eve Dallas must solve the murder of a seemingly ordinary family, and protect one small, terrified survivor in this novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling In Death series. No affairs. No criminal connections. No DNA. No clues. Lieutenant Eve Dallas may be the best cop in the city—not to mention having the lavish resources of her husband Roarke at her disposal—but the Swisher case has her baffled. The family members were murdered in their beds with brutal, military precision. The state-of-the-art security was breached, and the killers used night vision to find their way through the cozy middle-class house. Clearly, Dallas is dealing with pros. The only mistake they made was to overlook the nine-year-old girl cowering in the dark in the kitchen… Now Nixie Swisher is an orphan—and the sole eyewitness to a seemingly inexplicable crime. Kids are not Dallas’s strong suit. But Nixie needs a safe place to stay, and Dallas needs to solve this case. Not only because of the promise she made to Nixie. Not only for the cause of justice. But also to put to rest some of her own darkest memories—and deepest fears. With her partner Peabody on the job, and watching her back—and with Roarke providing the kind of help that only he can give—Lieutenant Eve Dallas is running after shadows, and dead-set on finding out who’s behind them.

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2
PREP
Curtis Sittenfeld
Cover of PREP

PREP

by Curtis Sittenfeld · Random House

4 wks on list

14-year-old Lee Fiora leaves Indiana to enroll at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. Surrounded by beautiful and wealthy students, Lee immediately feels like an outsider. Both repulsed and captivated by her classmates, she carves out a niche for herself. But everything falls apart when Lee's private thoughts become public information--leading to her ostracism.

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BLOOD MEMORY
Greg Iles
Cover of BLOOD MEMORY

BLOOD MEMORY

by Greg Iles · Scribner

2 wks on list

"Catherine "Cat" Ferry is a forensic odontologist, a specialist in bite marks and the clues they provide. But while Cat's colleagues know her as a world-class scientist, she secretly attempts to manage her fragile psyche with alcohol, delving into the minds of rapists and murderers yet never allowing her own frightening past to creep into the foreground." "Cat's latest case involves a disturbing murder in New Orleans. Banishing her personal demons, she focuses on the potential killer, until one morning she's paralyzed by a panic attack at a grisly murder scene. Praying the attack is a onetime event, she continues her job as a consultant to the New Orleans Police Department, but when another victim dies in the same shocking way - raising fears that a serial killer is at large - Cat blacks out over the victim's mutilated corpse." "Suspended from the FBI task force, plagued by nightmares, and at odds with her married lover - a homicide detective - Cat finally reaches her breaking point. In a desperate effort to regain control over a life spiraling out of control, Cat retreats to her hometown of Natchez, Mississippi. But her family's secluded antebellum estate provides no sanctuary." "When some of Cat's forensic chemicals are spilled in her childhood bedroom, two bloody footprints are revealed. This sight shocks her more than any corpse she has seen in her career. Cat's father was murdered when she was eight years old, but she always believed the crime occurred in the garden outside their home. The bloody footprints suggest otherwise." "Driven by this fragment of her past, Cat attempts a forensic reconstruction of the decades-old crime, even as developments in New Orleans task force pull her back into the case she left behind. Plagued by troubling nightmares, Cat pieces together the horrifying events she has been shielded from all her life. Soon, both she and the FBI realize that the murders occurring now in New Orleans are intimately bound up with Cat's family and her past."--BOOK JACKET.

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THE FORGOTTEN MAN
Robert Crais
Cover of THE FORGOTTEN MAN

THE FORGOTTEN MAN

by Robert Crais · Doubleday

2 wks on list

“[A] riveting novel with a vivid sense of place . . . Anyone who enjoys a well-written, fast-paced, noirish thriller with a great aha! moment shouldn’t miss The Forgotten Man.”—The Boston Globe In an alleyway in Los Angeles, an old man, clutching faded newspaper clippings and gasping his last words to a cop, lies dying of a gunshot wound. The victim claims to be P.I. Elvis Cole’s long-lost father—a stranger who has always haunted his son. As a teenager, Cole searched desperately for his father. As a man, he faces the frightening possibility that this murder victim was himself a killer. Caught in limbo between a broken love affair and way too much publicity over his last case, Cole at first resists getting involved with this new case. Then it consumes him. Now a stranger’s terrifying secrets—and a hunt for his killer—give Cole a frightening glimpse into his own past. And he can’t tell if it’s forgiveness or a bullet that’s coming next. . . . “Robert Crais is a crime writer of incredible talent—his novels are not only suspenseful and deeply atmospheric but very hard to put down.”—Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code “A brutal but exhilarating climax.”—USA Today

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THE KILLING CLUB
Marcie Walsh with Michael Malone
Cover of THE KILLING CLUB

THE KILLING CLUB

by Marcie Walsh with Michael Malone · Hyperion

2 wks on list

Over a decade ago in the small town of Gloria, New Jersey, feisty, redhearded outcast Jamie Ferrara and eleven friends from Gloria Hart High School started a club. They would come up with ingenious ways to kill people they didn't like--pretty much everybody they knew -- and write down these "pretend" murders in a Death Book. Calling themselves the Killing Club, the group of misfits voted on who was most likely to get away with their imaginary murders. It was harmless fun ... or so they thought. Suspenseful, romantic, and filled with humor, The Killing Club is a mystery written by popular One Life to Live character Marcie Walsh with Edgar and O. Henry Prize-winning writer Michael Malone.

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1
CHAINFIRE
Terry Goodkind
Cover of CHAINFIRE

CHAINFIRE

by Terry Goodkind · Tor/Tom Doherty

8 wks on list

Richard struggles to find his missing wife Kahlan in spite of the bizarre fact that no one else seems to believe she actually exists or that he is married to her.

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NEW
ME & EMMA
Elizabeth Flock
Cover of ME & EMMA

ME & EMMA

by Elizabeth Flock · Mira

1 wks on list

'Me and Emma' is a bittersweet and poignant tale about two little girls trapped by the limitations of a less than perfect childhood. It is sometimes sad, sometimes funny but more often an engrossing tale about the power of the imagination and the hope it brings to our lives. An unforgettable story that will appeal to fans of Alice Sebold's 'The Lovely Bones' and Catherine Ryan Hyde's 'Pay It Forward'.

15
NEW
IRELAND
Frank Delaney
Cover of IRELAND

IRELAND

by Frank Delaney · HarperCollins

This unforgettable "tour de force" marries the intimate, passionate texture of the Irish spirit with a sweeping, epic historical scope, to tell the story of how the character of the land and its people were shaped by history, neighboring England, and the Irish themselves.

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