TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of June 18, 2006

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AT RISK
Patricia Cornwell
Cover of AT RISK

AT RISK

by Patricia Cornwell · Putnam

2 wks on list

A Massachusetts district attorney running for governor wants to use some radical new DNA technology to solve a long-ago murder. The result? A new round of violence.

5
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THE COLD MOON
Jeffery Deaver
Cover of THE COLD MOON

THE COLD MOON

by Jeffery Deaver · Simon & Schuster

1 wks on list

It's the night of the full Cold Moon - the month of December according to the lunar calendar. A young man is found dead in lower Manhattan, the first in a series of victims of a man calling himself the Watchmaker. This killer's obsession with time drives him to plan the murders with the precision of fine timepieces, and the victims die prolonged deaths while an eerie clock ticks away their last minutes on earth. Lincoln Rhyme, Amelia Sachs and the rest of the crew are tapped to handle the case and stop the Watchmaker and his partner, Vincent Reynolds, a repulsive character with a special interest in the female victims of the killer. Amelia is not only Lincoln's eyes and ears at crime scenes on the Watchmaker case, but she's now running her own homicide investigation-her first case as lead detective. The policewoman's unwavering efforts in pursuing the killers of a businessman, who left behind a wife and son, sets into motion clockwork gears of its own, with consequences reaching to people and events that will endanger not only many lives but Lincoln's and Amelia's future together.

6
3
DEAD WATCH
John Sandford
Cover of DEAD WATCH

DEAD WATCH

by John Sandford · Putnam

3 wks on list

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Lucas Davenport novels delivers “a page-turner with a new hero, [and a] breakneck pace" (Minneapolis Star Tribune). “Former Sen. Lincoln Bowe, a Republican, has been missing for several days, setting off alarms on both sides of the political aisle. Finally, he is discovered in the remote Virginia woods, barb-wired to a tree, burned almost beyond recognition and missing his head. Democratic ‘research assistant’ (read: fixer) Jacob Winter, ex-Army Intelligence, wounded in Afghanistan, is called in by the Democratic president to unravel an extremely messy situation and shield his office from any hint of scandal. As this runaway train picks up speed, innocents are murdered, and the guilty come to Jesus… "…Sandford is a master at creating believable, indelible characters like Winter…[He] is peerless when it comes to economical, taut plotting, most notably at building tension. Dead Watch is anything but politics as usual.”—San Antonio Express-News

7
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DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
Sherrilyn Kenyon
Cover of DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

by Sherrilyn Kenyon · St. Martin's

1 wks on list

Susan Michaels was once the hottest reporter on the Beltway Beat until a major scandal ruined her life and left her writing stories about alien babies and Elvis sightings. Life as she once knew it is over, or so she thinks, but then she gets a lead on a story that could salvage her extinct career. She heads to the local animal shelter, expecting a hot news tip, which she gets in the form of a major police cover-up . . . for a ring of soul-sucking vampires out to take over Seattle. So much for saving her credibility. And if that isn't bad enough, she gets talked into adopting a cat and finds she's allergic to it. A cat that turns out to be a shapeshifter who claims to be an immortal vampire slayer on the prowl for the same corrupt cops. Her first thought: seek professional help. But as Susan's drawn into Ravyn's dark and dangerous world, she comes to realize that there's a lot more at stake than just her defunct career. Now it's no longer a question of bringing the truth to her readers; it's a matter of saving their very lives and souls. Ravyn's life was shattered over four hundred years ago, when he mistakenly trusted the wrong human with the truth of his existence. He lost his family, his honor, and his life. Now, in order to save the people of Seattle, he's forced to confront that nightmare all over again, and to trust another woman with the secret that could destroy him. In the world of the Dark-Hunters, life is always dangerous. But never more so than now; when a very human woman can shatter their entire world with just one story. The only question is . . . will she?

8
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KILLER DREAMS
Iris Johansen
Cover of KILLER DREAMS

KILLER DREAMS

by Iris Johansen · Bantam

1 wks on list

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Countdown returns with a knock-out suspense thriller that pits a mother and son against a killer who's the stuff of nightmares. If you close your eyes, he’ll get you. Sophie Dunston knows all too well how dreams can kill. As one of the nation’s top sleep therapists, she specializes in the life-threatening night terrors that her ten-year-old son, Michael, suffers from. But she is also an expert in another kind of terror–the kind that can turn a dream life into a living nightmare in the blink of an eye. Someone is watching. He’s a shadowy figure from out of her darkest fears and he hasn’t forgotten her. In one shocking moment of violence, he’d shattered Sophie’s world forever and left her with only one thing to live for: her son. But the nightmare isn’t over for Sophie Dunston. It’s just begun. He’s been waiting. Sophie was supposed to die the first time around, but fate intervened. This time he’ll make sure that not even a miracle will save her. It wasn’t a miracle that saved Jock Gavin, but it was pretty close. A semiretired hit man, commando, and jack-of-all-deadly-trades, he knows what Sophie is up against–and that she’ll need help. But the man he’s chosen for the job is as unpredictable as he is dangerous. Matt Royd is a wild card–hard, cool, merciless–and putting him into play changes the game completely. But to whose advantage? Sophie will soon find out. She will have to trust Royd because she has no choices left. Because the bogeyman haunting her dreams is all too real and he’s on the hunt again. Because the nightmare he’s got planned for Sophie won’t end when she wakes up screaming. It won’t end. Ever.

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THE HARD WAY
Lee Child
Cover of THE HARD WAY

THE HARD WAY

by Lee Child · Delacorte Press

3 wks on list

THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING JACK REACHER SERIES • Don’t miss the hit streaming series Reacher! “The truth about Reacher gets better and better. . . . This series [is] utterly addictive.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times Jack Reacher was alone, the way he liked it, soaking up the hot, electric New York City night, watching a man cross the street to a parked Mercedes and drive it away. The car contained one million dollars in ransom money because Edward Lane, the man who paid it, would do anything to get his family back. Lane runs a highly illegal soldiers-for-hire operation. He will use any tool to find his beautiful wife and child. And Jack Reacher is the best manhunter in the world. On the trail of vicious kidnappers, Reacher learns the chilling secrets of his employer’s past . . . and of a horrific drama in the heart of a nasty little war. He knows that Edward Lane is hiding something. Something dirty. Something big. But Reacher also knows this: He’s already in way too deep to stop now. And if he has to do it the hard way, he will.

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TWO LITTLE GIRLS IN BLUE
Mary Higgins Clark
Cover of TWO LITTLE GIRLS IN BLUE

TWO LITTLE GIRLS IN BLUE

by Mary Higgins Clark · Simon & Schuster

9 wks on list

Queen of Suspense and #1 New York Times bestselling writer Mary Higgins Clark brilliantly weaves the mystery of twin telepathy into a mother’s search for a kidnapped child, presumed dead in this “riveting…suspense thriller [that] is certain to send terror into the heart of any parent” (Publishers Weekly). Hours after throwing a third birthday party for their twins Kathy and Kelly in their Connecticut home, Margaret and Steve Frawley return home from a dinner in New York to discover the police in the house, their daughters missing, and an eight million dollar ransom note. The Frawleys meet the kidnapper’s demands, but the abandoned car they’re led to contains only Kelly, the body of the driver, and a suicide note, saying he had inadvertently killed Kathy and dumped her body in the ocean. At the private memorial Mass for Kathy, Kelly tugs Margaret’s arm and says that her sister Kathy “wants to come home right now.” More unexplainable occurrences indicate that Kelly is in touch with Kathy, but no one except Margaret believes that Kathy is still alive. As Kelly’s warnings become increasingly specific and alarming, however, FBI agents set out on a search for the kidnappers as Kathy’s life hangs by a thread. Delving into the well-documented but still unexplained phenomenon of twin telepathy, worldwide #1 bestseller Mary Higgins Clark takes us deep into the minds of her characters while lifting us to the heights of suspense.

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5
THE DA VINCI CODE
Dan Brown
Cover of THE DA VINCI CODE

THE DA VINCI CODE

by Dan Brown · Doubleday

166 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)!

14
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TELEGRAPH DAYS
Larry McMurtry
Cover of TELEGRAPH DAYS

TELEGRAPH DAYS

by Larry McMurtry · Simon & Schuster

1 wks on list

Recounts myths of the closing decades of the western frontier viewed through the eyes of Nellie Courtright and her brother Jackson, orphans that make good in the town of Rita Blanca in what would become the Oklahoma Panhandle.

15
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THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
Alan Furst
Cover of THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT

THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT

by Alan Furst · Random House

In 1939 Paris, the murder of an Italian political émigré by OVRA, Mussolini's secret police, brings new danger to his successor, Carlo Weisz, who finds himself the target of OVRA, MI6, Stalin's NKVD, and Hitler's Gestapo.

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