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Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of April 16, 2006

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1
NEW
GONE
Jonathan Kellerman
Cover of GONE

GONE

by Jonathan Kellerman · Ballantine

1 wks at #1 · 1 on list

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt. #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Missing acting students Dylan and Michaela are found in the remote mountains of Malibu, battered and terrified after a harrowing ordeal at the hands of a sadistic abductor. But forensic evidence soon exposes the incident as a hoax, and the kids are charged as criminals themselves. “Kellerman shows why he is called the ‘master of the psychological thriller.’”—Orlando Sentinel After examining Michaela, psychologist Alex Delaware is certain that there’s more to this sordid psychodrama, and his instincts prove dead-on when she is savagely murdered. Casting their dragnet into the murkiest corners of L.A., Delaware and homicide cop Milo Sturgis unearth more questions than answers—and a host of eerily identical killings. What bizarre and brutal epidemic is infecting the city with terror, madness, and sudden, twisted death?

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1
THE DA VINCI CODE
Dan Brown
Cover of THE DA VINCI CODE

THE DA VINCI CODE

by Dan Brown · Doubleday

158 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)!

5
1
THE TENTH CIRCLE
Jodi Picoult
Cover of THE TENTH CIRCLE

THE TENTH CIRCLE

by Jodi Picoult · Atria

4 wks on list

When the daughter of a comic book artist claims she has been raped at a party and her friends turn against her, she runs away to Alaska and her father must face his own violent past as he tries to find her.

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2
THE SECRET SUPPER
Javier Sierra
Cover of THE SECRET SUPPER

THE SECRET SUPPER

by Javier Sierra · Atria

2 wks on list

A PLAUSIBLE AND INTRIGUING STORY ABOUT THE BELIEFS OF MEDIEVAL CATHARS, WHOSE FAITH INCLUDED SECRET TEACHINGS ALLEGEDLY CONFIDED TO THE MOST BELOVED COMPANIONS OF JESUS--MARY MAGDALENE AND JOHN THE EVANGELIST.

7
NEW
TOMB OF THE GOLDEN BIRD
Elizabeth Peters
Cover of TOMB OF THE GOLDEN BIRD

TOMB OF THE GOLDEN BIRD

by Elizabeth Peters · Morrow

1 wks on list

The chase is on - and Amelia Peabody and Co. are in the thick of it! 1922 - convinced that the tomb of the little-known King Tutankhamon lies somewhere in the Valley of the Kings, Emerson has tried to persuade his rivals Lord Carnavon and Howard Carter to hand over their digging rights in the valley to him - but they resist. So back in Luxor an incident at the hotel the clan is staying in turns their gifts for digging in another direction. Emerson and Ramses are lured into a trap by a group of villains who demand answers to the mysterious question, 'Where is he?'. Their curiosity piqued, the duo is determined to uncover who 'he' is and why 'he' should be so important.

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1
THE TEMPLAR LEGACY
Steve Berry
Cover of THE TEMPLAR LEGACY

THE TEMPLAR LEGACY

by Steve Berry · Ballantine

6 wks on list

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Exciting . . . hard to put down without reading one more page.”—The Florida Times-Union The ancient order of the Knights Templar possessed untold wealth and absolute power over kings and popes . . . until the Inquisition, when they were wiped from the face of the earth, their hidden riches lost. But now two forces vying for the treasure have learned that it is not at all what they thought it was—and its true nature could change the modern world. Cotton Malone, one-time top operative for the U.S. Justice Department, is enjoying his quiet new life as an antiquarian book dealer in Copenhagen when an unexpected call to action reawakens his hair-trigger instincts—and plunges him back into the cloak-and-dagger world he thought he’d left behind. It begins with a violent robbery attempt on Cotton’s former supervisor, Stephanie Nelle, who’s far from home on a mission that has nothing to do with national security. Armed with vital clues to a series of centuries-old puzzles scattered across Europe, she means to crack a mystery that has tantalized scholars and fortune-hunters through the ages by finding the legendary cache of wealth and forbidden knowledge thought to have been lost forever when the order of the Knights Templar was exterminated in the fourteenth century. But she’s not alone. Competing for the historic prize— and desperate for the crucial information Stephanie possesses—is Raymond de Roquefort, a shadowy zealot with an army of assassins at his command. Welcome or not, Cotton seeks to even the odds in the perilous race. But the more he learns about the ancient conspiracy surrounding the Knights Templar, the more he realizes that even more than lives are at stake. At the end of a lethal game of conquest, rife with intrigue, treachery, and craven lust for power, lies a shattering discovery that could rock the civilized world—and, in the wrong hands, bring it to its knees.

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PRIOR BAD ACTS
Tami Hoag
Cover of PRIOR BAD ACTS

PRIOR BAD ACTS

by Tami Hoag · Bantam

2 wks on list

New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag returns with a thriller that begins with a shocking crime scene you’ll never forget and follows two relentless detectives on a manhunt that ends in a chilling confrontation with the essence of human evil. It was a crime so brutal, it changed the lives of even the most hardened homicide cops. The Haas family murders left a scar on the community nothing can erase, but everyone agrees that convicting the killer, Karl Dahl, is a start. Only Judge Carey Moore seems to be standing in the way. Her ruling that Dahl’s prior criminal record is inadmissible raises a public outcry—and puts the judge in grave danger. When an unknown assailant attacks Judge Moore in a parking garage, two of Minneapolis’ s top cops are called upon to solve the crime and keep the judge from further harm. Detective Sam Kovac is as hard-boiled as they come, and his wisecracking partner, Nikki Liska, isn’t far behind. Neither one wants to be on this case, but when Karl Dahl escapes from custody, everything changes, and a seemingly straightforward case cartwheels out of control. The stakes go even higher when the judge is kidnapped—snatched out of her own bed even as the police sit outside, watching her house. Now Kovac and Liska must navigate through a maze of suspects that includes the stepson of a murder victim, a husband with a secret life, and a rogue cop looking for revenge where the justice system failed. With no time to spare, the detectives are pulled down a strange dark trail of smoke and mirrors, where no one is who they seem and everyone is guilty of Prior Bad Acts.

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DIRTY BLONDE
Lisa Scottoline
Cover of DIRTY BLONDE

DIRTY BLONDE

by Lisa Scottoline · HarperCollins

3 wks on list

The double life of federal judge Cate Fante is exposed when the defendant in a high-profile lawsuit ends up dead and not only threatens her future on the bench but also her very life when the killer comes after her.

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A DIRTY JOB
Christopher Moore
Cover of A DIRTY JOB

A DIRTY JOB

by Christopher Moore · Morrow

2 wks on list

Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy with a normal life, married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. They're even about to have their first child. Yes, Charlie's doing okay—until people start dropping dead around him, and everywhere he goes a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Charlie Asher, it seems, has been recruited for a new position: as Death. It's a dirty job. But, hey! Somebody's gotta do it.

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THE LAST TEMPLAR
Raymond Khoury
Cover of THE LAST TEMPLAR

THE LAST TEMPLAR

by Raymond Khoury · Dutton

11 wks on list

The first thrilling novel in Raymond Khoury’s New York Times bestselling Templar series. In 1291, a young Templar knight flees the fallen holy land in a hail of fire and flashing sword, setting out to sea with a mysterious chest entrusted to him by the Order's dying grand master. The ship vanishes without a trace. In present day Manhattan, four masked horsemen dressed as Templar Knights stage a bloody raid on the Metropolitan Museum of Art during an exhibit of Vatican treasures. Emerging with a strange geared device, they disappear into the night. The investigation that follows draws archaeologist Tess Chaykin and FBI agent Sean Reilly into the dark, hidden history of the crusading knights—and into a deadly game of cat and mouse with ruthless killers—as they race across three continents to recover the lost secret of the Templars.

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DARK ASSASSIN
Anne Perry
Cover of DARK ASSASSIN

DARK ASSASSIN

by Anne Perry · Ballantine

On a patrol boat near Waterloo Bridge, police superintendent William Monk notices a young couple engaged in an intense discussion. Seconds later, the two plunge to their deaths in the icy waters of the Thames. Was it an accident, a suicide, or a murder? Ever the investigator, Monk learns that the woman, Mary Havilland, had planned to marry the fair-haired man who shared her fate. He also discovers that Mary’s father had recently died in a supposed suicide. But Mary’s friends share their own darks suspicions with Monk, who now faces the mysteries surrounding three deaths. Aided by his intrepid wife, Hester, Monk searches for answers. From luxurious drawing rooms where powerful men hatch their unscrupulous plots, to the sewers beneath the city where poor folk fight crippling poverty, Monk must connect the clues before death strikes again.

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