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Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of February 12, 2012

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1
NEW
TAKEN
Robert Crais
Cover of TAKEN

TAKEN

by Robert Crais · Putnam

1 wks at #1 · 1 on list

The search for a missing girl leads private investigators Elvis Cole and Joe Pike into the nightmarish world of human trafficking in this #1 New York Times bestseller from Robert Crais. When Nita Morales hires Elvis Cole to find her missing daughter, she's sure it's a ruse orchestrated by the girl and her boyfriend. She's wrong. They've been taken by bajadores—border bandits who prey on the innocent by buying, selling, and disposing of victims like commodities. Cole and Joe Pike start an undercover investigation to find the couple, but their plan derails when Cole disappears, leaving Pike to burn through the murderous world of human traffickers to find his friend as well as the missing young people. But he may already be too late...

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PRIVATE: #1 SUSPECT
James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
Cover of PRIVATE: #1 SUSPECT

PRIVATE: #1 SUSPECT

by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro · Little, Brown

4 wks on list

Former Marine Jack Morgan always uncovers the truth. But in James Patterson's unforgettable thriller, he faces his most shocking case yet. Since former Marine Jack Morgan started Private, it has become the world's most effective investigation firm--sought out by the famous and the powerful to discreetly handle their most intimate problems. Private's investigators are the smartest, the fastest, and the most technologically advanced in the world-and they always uncover the truth. When his former lover is found murdered in his bed, Jack Morgan is instantly the number one suspect. While Jack is under police investigation, the mob strong-arms him into recovering $30 million in stolen pharmaceuticals for them. And the beautiful manager of a luxury hotel chain persuades him to quietly investigate a string of murders at her properties. While Jack is fighting for his life, one of his most trusted colleagues threatens to leave Private, and Jack realizes he is confronting his cleverest and most powerful enemies ever. With more action, more intrigue, and more twists than ever before, Private: #1 Suspect is James Patterson at his unstoppable best.

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1
DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY
P. D. James
Cover of DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY

DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY

by P. D. James · Knopf

8 wks on list

The world is classic Jane Austen. The mystery is vintage P.D. James. This enhanced ebook of Death Comes to Pemberley contains video and audio that can be viewed and heard on a tablet device such as the iPad. There is a video interview with P. D. James, a longer audio interview, and an audio author reading. The year is 1803, and Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet have been married for six years. There are now two handsome and healthy sons in the nursery, Elizabeth's beloved sister Jane and her husband Bingley live nearby and the orderly world of Pemberley seems unassailable. But all this is threatened when, on the eve of the annual autumn ball, the guests are preparing to retire for the night when a chaise appears, rocking down the path from Pemberley's wild woodland. As it pulls up, Lydia Wickham - Elizabeth Bennet's younger, unreliable sister - stumbles out screaming that her husband has been murdered. Two great literary minds - master of suspense P.D. James and literary icon Jane Austen - come together in Death Comes to Pemberley, a bestselling historical crime fiction tribute to Pride and Prejudice. Conjuring the world of Elizabeth Bennet and Mark Darcy and combining the trappings of Regency British society with a classic murder mystery, James creates a delightful mash-up that will intrigue any Janeite. From the bestselling author of The Murder Room, Children of Men and A Certain Justice, comes a wonderful mixture of the nation's greatest romance and best-loved crime fiction. In 2013, this novel was adapted as a miniseries by the BBC, starring Matthew Rhys as Darcy, Anna Maxwell Martin as Elizabeth Bennet and Jenna Coleman as Lydia Wickham.

5
NEW
11/22/63
Stephen King
Cover of 11/22/63

11/22/63

by Stephen King · Scribner

On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a tour de force. Following his massively successful novel Under the Dome, King sweeps readers back in time to another moment—a real life moment—when everything went wrong: the JFK assassination. And he introduces readers to a character who has the power to change the course of history. Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night fifty years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk. Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time. A tribute to a simpler era and a devastating exercise in escalating suspense, 11/22/63 is Stephen King at his epic best.

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BELIEVING THE LIE
Elizabeth George
Cover of BELIEVING THE LIE

BELIEVING THE LIE

by Elizabeth George · Dutton

3 wks on list

#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Punishment She Deserves Elizabeth George has millions of fans following her Inspector Lynley series. As USA Today put it, "It's tough to resist George's storytelling, once hooked." With Believing the Lie, she's poised to hook countless more. Inspector Thomas Lynley is mystified when he's sent undercover to investigate the death of Ian Cresswell at the request of the man's uncle, the wealthy and influential Bernard Fairclough. The death has been ruled an accidental drowning, and nothing on the surface indicates otherwise. But when Lynley enlists the help of his friends Simon and Deborah St. James, the trio's digging soon reveals that the Fairclough clan is awash in secrets, lies, and motives. Deborah's investigation of the prime suspect--Bernard's prodigal son Nicholas, a recovering drug addict--leads her to Nicholas's wife, a woman with whom she feels a kinship, a woman as fiercely protective as she is beautiful. Lynley and Simon delve for information from the rest of the family, including the victim's bitter ex-wife and the man he left her for, and Bernard himself. As the investigation escalates, the Fairclough family's veneer cracks, with deception and self-delusion threatening to destroy everyone from the Fairclough patriarch to Tim, the troubled son Ian left behind.

7
RAYLAN
Elmore Leonard
Cover of RAYLAN

RAYLAN

by Elmore Leonard · Morrow/HarperCollins

2 wks on list

The star of JUSTIFIED returns in a stunning new novel from 'the greatest crime writer who ever lived' [Dennis Lehane]. US Marshal Raylan Givens, star of the series JUSTIFIED, and protagonist of RIDING THE RAP, PRONTO and the story 'Fire in the Hole', is back in action, this time with a federal warrant to serve on a dope dealer named Angel Arenas, a man 'born in the U.S. but a hundred percent of him Hispanic'. The state troopers are impressed when the marshal struts into the convict's hotel room without drawing his gun, but Raylan soon finds that Angel's already been the victim of another crime, one that's way bigger than a few pot plants, and clearly the work of a professional ... RAYLAN shows Elmore Leonard at the height of his powers, as we follow one of his favourite protagonists through a series of adventures with unlikely villains. As ever, the work is filled with unexpected twists and the most vibrant, crackling dialogue currently available in the English language.

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THE LITIGATORS
John Grisham
Cover of THE LITIGATORS

THE LITIGATORS

by John Grisham · Doubleday

14 wks on list

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • After leaving a fast-track legal career and going on a serious bender, David Zinc is sober, unemployed, and desperate enough to take a job at Finley & Figg, a self-described “boutique law firm” that is anything but. What they are is a two-bit operation always in search of their big break, ambulance chasers who’ve been in the trenches much too long making way too little. Their specialties, so to speak, are quickie divorces and DUIs, with the occasional jackpot of an actual car wreck thrown in. After twenty plus years together, Oscar Finley and Wally Figg bicker like an old married couple but somehow continue to scratch out a half-decent living from their seedy bungalow offices in southwest Chicago. And then change comes their way. More accurately, it stumbles in. David Zinc, a young but already burned-out attorney, walks away from his fast-track career at a fancy downtown firm, goes on a serious bender, and finds himself literally at the doorstep of our boutique firm. Once David sobers up and comes to grips with the fact that he’s suddenly unemployed, any job—even one with Finley & Figg—looks okay to him. With their new associate on board, F&F is ready to tackle a really big case, a case that could make the partners rich without requiring them to actually practice much law. An extremely popular drug, Krayoxx, the number one cholesterol reducer for the dangerously overweight, produced by Varrick Labs, a giant pharmaceutical company with annual sales of $25 billion, has recently come under fire after several patients taking it have suffered heart attacks. Wally smells money. A little online research confirms Wally’s suspicions—a huge plaintiffs’ firm in Florida is putting together a class action suit against Varrick. All Finley & Figg has to do is find a handful of people who have had heart attacks while taking Krayoxx, convince them to become clients, join the class action, and ride along to fame and fortune. With any luck, they won’t even have to enter a courtroom! It almost seems too good to be true. And it is. The Litigators is a tremendously entertaining romp, filled with the kind of courtroom strategies, theatrics, and suspense that have made John Grisham America’s favorite storyteller.

9
NEW
DARKER AFTER MIDNIGHT
Lara Adrian
Cover of DARKER AFTER MIDNIGHT

DARKER AFTER MIDNIGHT

by Lara Adrian · Delacorte Press

1 wks on list

The climactic novel in Lara Adrian's New York Times bestselling Midnight Breed series Darker After Midnight invites readers to enter a thrillingly sensual world where danger meets desire. After existing in secret for many centuries, maintaining a fragile peace with the humans who walk beside them, unaware, one single act of retaliation has put the entire vampire nation at risk of discovery. And it falls to the Order - a select society of Breed warriors pledged to protect their own and humankind alike - to stop Dragos, the power-hungry vampire at the centre of the conflict, before his lust for domination can explode into catastrophe. At the centre of the Order's quest is Stirling Chase, a troubled Breed warrior whose biggest conflict is the one he wages against his own savage nature. With addiction beckoning him towards eternal darkness, Chase's path to redemption lies in the hands of a mysterious and beautiful young woman who may be something much more than she seems... Praise for the Midnight Breed Series: 'Evocative, enticing, erotic' - J R Ward 'Adrenaline-fuelled, sizzlingly sexy, darkly intense... addictively readable series' - Chicago Tribune 'A gut-wrenchingly new paranormal series by hot talent Adrian... terrific supernatural entertainment' - Romantic Times Smart, sexy and compelling' - Fresh Fiction

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1
LOCKED ON
Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney
Cover of LOCKED ON

LOCKED ON

by Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney · Putnam

7 wks on list

Jack Ryan Jr.—along with the covert warriors of the Campus—continues to uphold his legendary father’s legacy of courage and honor in this thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Tom Clancy. Privately training with special forces, he’s honing his combat skills to continue his work within the Campus, hunting down and eliminating terrorists wherever he can—even as Jack Ryan Sr. campaigns to become President of the United States again. But what neither father nor son knows is that the political and personal have just become equally dangerous. A devout enemy of Jack Sr. launches a privately-funded vendetta to discredit him and connect him to a mysterious killing in his longtime ally John Clark’s past. All they have to do is catch him. With Clark on the run, it’s up to Jack Jr. to stop a growing threat emerging in the Middle East, where a corrupt Pakistani general has entered into a deadly pact with a fanatical terrorist to procure four nuclear warheads they can use to blackmail any world power into submission—or face annihilation.

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DEATH OF KINGS
Bernard Cornwell
Cover of DEATH OF KINGS

DEATH OF KINGS

by Bernard Cornwell · Harper/HarperCollins

2 wks on list

The story of Saxon claimants to the throne during the forming of England at the end of the ninth century continues as Alfred the Great lays dying and the fate of the Angles, Saxons, and Vikings hangs in the balance.

12
NEW
A DANCE WITH DRAGONS
George R. R. Martin
Cover of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS

A DANCE WITH DRAGONS

by George R. R. Martin · Bantam

26 wks on list

A latest installment of the popular series follows a showdown set in the north of the Seven Kingdoms and reveals the circumstances that shaped southern-region events. By the best-selling author of A Feast for Crows.

13
NEW
PINEAPPLE GRENADE
Tim Dorsey
Cover of PINEAPPLE GRENADE

PINEAPPLE GRENADE

by Tim Dorsey · Morrow/HarperCollins

1 wks on list

“The undisputed king of the comic crime novel.” —Providence Journal “I guarantee Dorsey will never win the Nobel Prize for Literature—he’s far too funny.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch “If you’ve never read Dorsey, you need to start…You won’t be disappointed.” —Miami Herald Gloriously unrepentant Florida serial killer Serge Storms is back—and he’s finagled his way into becoming a secret agent in Miami—in another outrageous crime comedy from New York Times bestselling author, Tim Dorsey. In Pineapple Grenade, the incomparable Serge takes up spying for the president of a banana republic, and now Homeland Security wants to bring him down. It’s always a wild ride when Dorsey’s at the wheel, and with Pineapple Grenade he delivers his most explosively hilarious road trip to date.

14
NEW
THE PARIS WIFE
Paula McLain
Cover of THE PARIS WIFE

THE PARIS WIFE

by Paula McLain · Ballantine

28 wks on list

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deeply evocative novel of ambition and betrayal that captures the love affair between two unforgettable people, Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley—from the author of Love and Ruin and When the Stars Go Dark “A beautiful portrait of being in Paris in the glittering 1920s—as a wife and as one’s own woman.”—Entertainment Weekly NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People • Chicago Tribune • NPR • The Philadelphia Inquirer • Kirkus Reviews • The Toronto Sun • BookPage Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking, fast-living, and free-loving life of Jazz Age Paris. As Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history and pours himself into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises, Hadley strives to hold on to her sense of self as her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Eventually they find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for. A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.

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THE BEST OF ME
Nicholas Sparks
Cover of THE BEST OF ME

THE BEST OF ME

by Nicholas Sparks · Grand Central

16 wks on list

The bestselling love story behind the massive Hollywood film starring James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan. They were teenage sweethearts from opposite sides of the tracks - with a passion that would change their lives for ever. But life would force them apart. Years later, the lines they had drawn between past and present are about to slip . . . Called back to their hometown for the funeral of the mentor who once gave them shelter when they needed it most, they are faced with each other once again, and forced to confront the paths they chose. Can true love ever rewrite the past? This is the new epic love story from the multi-million-copy bestselling author of The Notebook, The Lucky One and The Last Song. Nicholas Sparks is one of the world's most beloved authors.

16
NEW
THE ROPE
Nevada Barr
Cover of THE ROPE

THE ROPE

by Nevada Barr · Minotaur

New York Times bestselling author Nevada Barr finally reveals the story that her fans have been clamoring for: Anna Pigeon's first case. In 1995—35 years old, fresh off the bus from New York City, and nursing a broken heart—Anna Pigeon takes a decidedly unglamorous job as a seasonal employee of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. On her day off, Anna goes hiking into the park never to return. Her co-workers think she's simply moved on; her cabin is cleaned out and her things are gone. But Anna herself wakes up, trapped at the bottom of a dry natural well, naked, without supplies and no clear memory of how she found herself in this situation. As she slowly pieces together her memory, it soon becomes clear that someone has trapped her there, in an inescapable prison, and no one knows that she is even missing. Plunged into a landscape and a plot she is unfit and untrained to handle, Anna Pigeon must muster the courage, determination and will to live that she didn't even know she still possessed to survive, outwit and triumph. For those legions of readers who have been entranced over the years by Park Ranger Anna Pigeon's strength and determination, and for those who are new to Nevada Barr's captivating, compelling series, The Rope is where it all starts.

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