TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of August 19, 2007

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A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
Khaled Hosseini
Cover of A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS

A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS

by Khaled Hosseini · Riverhead

15 wks at #1 · 11 on list

1 New York Times bestselling author. Main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and Literary Guild. Both born in Afghanistan a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family Mariam and Laila are brought together by war by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them - in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul - they form a bond that will ultimately alter the course of their lives and the lives of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice and that in the end it is love or even the memory of love that is often the key to survival. "Searing ... forceful ... harrowing." - Publishers Weekly starred. "Unimaginably tragic Hosseini's magnificent second novel is a sad and beautiful testament to both Afghani suffering and strength. Readers who lost themselves in The Kite Runner will not want to miss this unforgettable follow-up." - Booklist starred

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THE SECRET SERVANT
Daniel Silva
Cover of THE SECRET SERVANT

THE SECRET SERVANT

by Daniel Silva · Putnam

2 wks on list

A terrorist plot in London leads Israeli spy Gabriel Allon on a desperate search for a kidnapped woman in this thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva. While in Amsterdam, Israeli intelligence officer and master art restorer Gabriel Allon discovers a plot that is about to explode in the middle of London. The daughter of the American ambassador is to be brutally kidnapped. But Gabriel arrives too late to save her. And when he reveals his face to the plot’s masterminds, his fate is sealed as well. Drawn once more into the service of American intelligence, Gabriel desperately searches for the missing woman as the clock ticks steadily toward the hour of her execution. The search will thrust him into an unlikely alliance with a man who has lost everything because of his devotion to Islam. It will cause him to question the morality of the tactics of his trade. And it might very well cost him his life… A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year

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HIGH NOON
Nora Roberts
Cover of HIGH NOON

HIGH NOON

by Nora Roberts · Putnam

4 wks on list

Attracted to a talented police lieutenant who serves as Savannah's top hostage negotiator, Duncan Swift endeavors to become a part of Phoebe MacNamara's solitary life in both her personal and professional arenas.

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BEYOND REACH
Karin Slaughter
Cover of BEYOND REACH

BEYOND REACH

by Karin Slaughter · Delacorte Press

1 wks on list

“Powerful and complex . . . [Karin] Slaughter gradually unspools her fascinating story, all the way up to its shocking conclusion.”—Chicago Sun-Times In a small Georgia town, Detective Lena Adams is accused of a vicious murder. A hundred miles away, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver learns that his young detective has been arrested. And Jeffrey’s wife, pediatrician and medical examiner Sara Linton, fighting a heartbreaking malpractice suit, is thrust into the center of a bizarre and murderous case. For Lena has fled to the place where she grew up, careening back through the shadows of her past. Now only Jeffrey and Sara can free Lena from the web of lies that has trapped her—as this powerful novel races toward its shattering climax and a final, unforgettable twist. Praise for Karin Slaughter and Beyond Reach “Will leave you breathless.”—USA Today “Slaughter writes with a razor.”—The Plain Dealer “Slaughter will have you on the edge of your seat.”—Seattle Post-Intelligencer BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Karin Slaughter’s Unseen.

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THE FIRST COMMANDMENT
Brad Thor
Cover of THE FIRST COMMANDMENT

THE FIRST COMMANDMENT

by Brad Thor · Atria

3 wks on list

A master assassin. A vendetta years in the making. And a counterterrorism operative who will risk everything -- even treason -- to keep the people he loves alive. Brad Thor, the New York Times bestselling author of Takedown, delivers an explosive international thriller featuring Navy SEAL turned Homeland Security operative Scot Harvath, who somewhere, somehow, has left the wrong person alive. "Thou shalt not negotiate with terrorists..." Six months ago: In the dead of the night, five of the most dangerous detainees in the war on terror are pulled from their isolation cells in Guantanamo Bay, held at gunpoint, and told to strip off their orange jumpsuits. Issued civilian clothes and driven to the base airfield, they are loaded aboard a Boeing 727 and set free. Present day: Covert counterterrorism agent Scot Harvath awakens to discover that his world has changed violently -- and forever. A sadistic assassin with a personal vendetta is wreaking havoc of biblical proportions. Unleashing nightmarish horrors on those closest to Harvath, the attacker thrusts everything Harvath holds dear -- including his life -- into absolute peril. Ordered by the president to stay out of the investigation, Harvath is forced to mount his own operation to uncover the conspiracy and to exact revenge. When he discovers a connection between the attacks and a group of prisoners secretly released from Guantanamo, Harvath must ask himself previously unthinkable questions about the organizations and the nation he has spent his life serving. A renegade from his own government, Harvath will place his life on the line as his search for the truth draws him into a showdown with one of the most dangerous men on the face of the earth. Brad Thor roars through this nonstop adventure full of international intrigue, twisted betrayals, and ultimate revenge.

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UP CLOSE AND DANGEROUS
Linda Howard
Cover of UP CLOSE AND DANGEROUS

UP CLOSE AND DANGEROUS

by Linda Howard · Ballantine

3 wks on list

After her small plane crashes, nearly killing her and her pilot and leaving them stranded in the wilderness and dependent on each other for survival, a wealthy young widow begins to suspect that the crash was no accident.

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IN AT THE DEATH
Harry Turtledove
Cover of IN AT THE DEATH

IN AT THE DEATH

by Harry Turtledove · Del Rey

1 wks on list

Franklin Roosevelt is the assistant secretary of defense. Thomas Dewey is running for president with a blunt-speaking Missourian named Harry Truman at his side. Britain holds onto its desperate alliance with the USA’s worst enemy, while a holocaust unfolds in Texas. In Harry Turtledove’s compelling, disturbing, and extraordinarily vivid reshaping of American history, a war of secession has triggered a generation of madness. The tipping point has come at last. The third war in sixty years, this one yet unnamed: a grinding, horrifying series of hostilities and atrocities between two nations sharing the same continent and both calling themselves Americans. At the dawn of 1944, the United States has beaten back a daredevil blitzkrieg from the Confederate States–and a terrible new genie is out of history’s bottle: a bomb that may destroy on a scale never imagined before. In Europe, the new weapon has shattered a stalemate between Germany, England, and Russia. When the trigger is pulled in America, nothing will be the same again. With visionary brilliance, Harry Turtledove brings to a climactic conclusion his monumental, acclaimed drama of a nation’s tragedy and the men and women who play their roles–with valor, fear, and folly–on history’s greatest stage.

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THURSDAY NEXT
Jasper Fforde
Cover of THURSDAY NEXT

THURSDAY NEXT

by Jasper Fforde · Viking Press

2 wks on list

Exhausted by her stint as Miss Havisham's apprentice at Jurisfiction, Thursday Next is delighted by a respite in the Character Exchange Program in the Well of Lost Plots, a place filled with linguistic chaos, lousy books, and a murderer.

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