TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of March 29, 2015

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THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN
Paula Hawkins
Cover of THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

by Paula Hawkins · Riverhead

19 wks at #1 · 9 on list

THE RUNAWAY GLOBAL BESTSELLER 'Gripping, enthralling - a top-notch thriller and a compulsive read.' SJ Watson, bestselling author of BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She's even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. 'Jess and Jason', she calls them. Their life - as she sees it - is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy. And then she sees something shocking. It's only a minute until the train moves on, but it's enough. Now everything's changed. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she's only watched from afar. Now they'll see; she's much more than just the girl on the train... ***PAULA HAWKINS' NEW ADDICTIVE THRILLER, THE BLUE HOUR IS AVAILABLE NOW***

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ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE
Anthony Doerr
Cover of ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE

by Anthony Doerr · Scribner

45 wks on list

An imaginative and intricate novel inspired by the horrors of World War II and written in short, elegant chapters that explore human nature and the contradictory power of technology.

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ENDANGERED
C. J. Box
Cover of ENDANGERED

ENDANGERED

by C. J. Box · Putnam

1 wks on list

Don’t miss the JOE PICKETT series—now streaming on Paramount+ In this New York Times bestseller, Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett is determined to find out who put his daughter’s life in danger—even if it kills him. Joe Pickett had good reason to dislike Dallas Cates, and now he has even more—Joe’s eighteen-year-old daughter, April, has run off with him. And then comes even worse news: She has been found in a ditch along the highway—alive, but just barely, the victim of blunt force trauma. Cates denies having anything to do with it, but Joe knows in his gut who’s responsible. What he doesn’t know is the kind of danger he’s about to encounter. Cates is bad enough, but Cates’s family is like none Joe has ever met.

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A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD
Anne Tyler
Cover of A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD

A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD

by Anne Tyler · Knopf

5 wks on list

The changing needs of aging parents impact a family gathering during which Abby Whitshank relates how her husband and she fell in love during the summer of 1959 and shared decades of marriage impacted by children and long-held secrets. Reading-group guide available. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Breathing Lessons. 125,000 first printing.

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THE BURIED GIANT
Kazuo Ishiguro
Cover of THE BURIED GIANT

THE BURIED GIANT

by Kazuo Ishiguro · Knopf

2 wks on list

*Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Klara and the Sun is now available * The Romans have long since departed, and Britain is steadily declining into ruin. The Buried Giant begins as a couple, Axl and Beatrice, set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen for years. They expect to face many hazards - some strange and other-worldly - but they cannot yet foresee how their journey will reveal to them dark and forgotten corners of their love for one another. 'A beautiful fable with a hard message at its core . . . There won't, I suspect, be a more important work of fiction published this year.' The Times 'An exceptional novel . . . The Buried Giant does what important books do: it remains in the mind long after it has been read, refusing to leave.' New York Times Book Review 'A beautiful, heartbreaking book about the duty to remember and the urge to forget.' Observer

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LAST ONE HOME
Debbie Macomber

LAST ONE HOME

by Debbie Macomber · Ballantine

1 wks on list

"The Palmer sisters couldn't be more different. Karen, the eldest, is the responsible one, the one who got the grades, married the perfect guy, and has two wonderful, high-achieving children. Cassie is the rebellious one who got pregnant right after high school and married the wrong man, despite her family's misgivings. And Nicole is a free, creative spirit who's always been indulged and pampered as the baby of the family who could do no wrong. These differences were enough to drive the three sisters apart over the years, but their mother's unexpected death makes them realize that she would have wanted them to repair old wounds and let bygones be bygones. What they discover is that none of their lives are as perfect as they seem, and despite their differences, they're the only family each other can depend on. A heartwarming illustration of all the ups and downs of life, and the sometimes fraught, but always enduring, relationship between sisters.

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THE NIGHTINGALE
Kristin Hannah
Cover of THE NIGHTINGALE

THE NIGHTINGALE

by Kristin Hannah · St. Martin's

6 wks on list

The bestselling Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick 'One of the greatest storytellers of our time' – Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing Soon to be a major motion picture, The Nightingale is a multi-million copy bestseller across the world. It is a heart-breakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the endurance of women. 'I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I’d like to be known' This story is about what it was like to be a woman during World War II when women’s stories were all too often forgotten or overlooked . . . Vianne and Isabelle Mauriac are two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals and passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path towards survival, love and freedom in war-torn France. Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime. ‘A rich, compelling novel of love, sacrifice and survival’ - Kate Morton ‘Movingly written and plotted with the heartless skill of a Greek tragedy, you’ll keep turning the pages until the last racking sob’ - Daily Mail ‘I loved The Nightingale . . . great characters, great plots, great emotions, who could ask for more in a novel?’ - Isabel Allende, bestselling author of The House of the Spirits ‘A gripping tale of family, love, grief and forgiveness’ - Sunday Express The Nightingale has sold more than 4 million copies globally, TIME, February 2021

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WORLD GONE BY
Dennis Lehane
Cover of WORLD GONE BY

WORLD GONE BY

by Dennis Lehane · Morrow/HarperCollins

1 wks on list

A psychologically, morally complex novel of blood, crime, passion, and vengeance, set in Cuba and Ybor City, Florida, during World War II, in which Joe Coughlin must confront the cost of his criminal past and present. Ten years have passed since Joe Coughlin’s enemies killed his wife and destroyed his empire, and much has changed. Prohibition is dead, the world is at war again, and Joe’s son, Tomás, is growing up. Now, the former crime kingpin works as a consigliore to the Bartolo crime family, traveling between Tampa and Cuba, his wife’s homeland. A master who moves in and out of the black, white, and Cuban underworlds, Joe effortlessly mixes with Tampa’s social elite, U.S. Naval intelligence, the Lansky-Luciano mob, and the mob-financed government of Fulgencio Batista. He has everything—money, power, a beautiful mistress, and anonymity. But success cannot protect him from the dark truth of his past—and ultimately, the wages of a lifetime of sin will finally be paid in full. Dennis Lehane vividly recreates the rise of the mob during a world at war, from a masterfully choreographed Ash Wednesday gun battle in the streets of Ybor City to a chilling, heartbreaking climax in a Cuban sugar cane field. Told with verve and skill, World Gone By is a superb work of historical fiction from one of “the most interesting and accomplished American novelists” (Washington Post) writing today.

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THE ASSASSIN
Clive Cussler and Justin Scott
Cover of THE ASSASSIN

THE ASSASSIN

by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott · Putnam

2 wks on list

Detective Isaac Bell tracks a killer across the nation’s oilfields in this adventure in the #1 New York Times–bestselling historical series. As Van Dorn private detective Isaac Bell strives to land a government contract to investigate John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil monopoly, the case takes a deadly turn. A sniper begins murdering opponents of Standard Oil, and soon the assassin—shooting with extraordinary accuracy at seemingly impossible long range—kills Bell’s best witness. Then the shooter detonates a terrible explosion that sets the victim’s independent refinery ablaze. Bell summons his best detectives to hunt down the mysterious killer. But the murders—shootings, poisonings, staged accidents—have just begun as Bell tracks his phantom-like criminal adversary from the “oil fever” regions of Kansas and Texas to Washington, D.C., to the tycoons’ enclave of New York, to Russia’s war-torn Baku oil fields on the Caspian Sea, and back to America for a final, desperate confrontation. And this one will be the most explosive of all.

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PRODIGAL SON
Danielle Steel
Cover of PRODIGAL SON

PRODIGAL SON

by Danielle Steel · Delacorte Press

3 wks on list

Twin brothers are reunited after twenty years of silence and blame when the prodigal son returns home . . . In a matter of days, Peter McDowell loses everything he has worked so hard for – including his marriage. Stripped of everything, he has only one place he can retreat to: the home he left twenty years ago. There, he comes face to face with his brother for the first time in years. At first, Peter dreads seeing Michael again – but to his surprise their reunion is tender and real. Only later, as Peter mulls over his late mother's journals, does he begin to question what lies beneath Michael's perfect surface. In a race for time, Peter throws caution to the wind to find the truth. What he discovers will change their lives, the lives of their children and an entire town for ever. A riveting novel of secrets, salvation, and redemption from master storyteller Danielle Steel.

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THE FIFTH GOSPEL
Ian Caldwell
Cover of THE FIFTH GOSPEL

THE FIFTH GOSPEL

by Ian Caldwell · Simon & Schuster

2 wks on list

Ian Caldwell returns with a new intellectual thriller that confirms his place among the most ambitious popular storytellers working today, as a lost gospel, a relic, and a dying pope's final wish send two brothers - both Vatican priests - on a quest to untangle Christianity's biggest mystery. 2004. As Pope John Paul II's reign enters its twilight, a mysterious exhibit is under construction at the Vatican Museums. A week before it is scheduled to open, its curator is murdered. The same night, a violent break-in rocks the home of the curator's research partner, Father Alex Andreou, a Greek Catholic priest who lives inside the Vatican with his five-year-old son. When the papal police fail to identify a suspect in either crime, Father Alex, desperate to keep his family safe, undertakes his own investigation. To find the killer he must reconstruct the dead curator's secret. But just as he begins to understand the truth about his friend's death, and its consequences for the future of the world's two largest Christian Churches, Father Alex finds himself hunted down ...

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MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD
Jeffrey Archer
Cover of MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD

MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD

by Jeffrey Archer · St. Martin's

3 wks on list

Fast-paced and intriguing, Mightier than the Sword is the fifth novel in Jeffrey Archer’s bestselling Clifton Chronicles. Moving towards the end of the 1960s, the Cliftons and the Barringtons come up against sworn enemies and new foes . . . Following the explosion of an IRA bomb on board the Barrington’s flagship MV Buckingham, Emma Clifton must deal with the repercussions on her family’s shipping business. Meanwhile her old adversary, Lady Virginia Fenwick, plots her downfall. Bestselling novelist Harry is on a mission to free a fellow author imprisoned in Siberia, even if it costs him everything. Giles, his brother-in-law, a minister of the Crown, faces his own problems when a diplomatic disaster risks his bid for higher office. With its devastating twists and turns, Archer’s spellbinding the Clifton Chronicles continues to enthral readers. Continue the bestselling series with Cometh the Hour and This Was a Man.

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THE WHITES
Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt
Cover of THE WHITES

THE WHITES

by Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt · Holt

4 wks on list

Back in the run-and-gun days of the mid-1990s, when a young Billy Graves worked in the South Bronx as part of an aggressive anti-crime unit known as the Wild Geese, he made headlines by accidentally shooting a ten-year-old boy while struggling with an angel-dusted berserker on a crowded street. Branded as a loose cannon by his higher-ups, Billy spent years enduring one dead-end posting after another. Now in his early forties, he has somehow survived and become a sergeant in Manhattan Night Watch, a small team of detectives charged with responding to all post-midnight felonies from Wall Street to Harlem. Mostly, his unit acts as little more than a set-up crew for the incoming shift, but after years in police purgatory, Billy is content simply to do his job. Then comes a call that changes everything: Night Watch is summoned to the four a.m. fatal slashing of a man in Penn Station, and this time Billy's investigation moves beyond the usual handoff to the day tour. And when he discovers that the victim was once a suspect in the unsolved murder of a twelve-year-old boy-a savage case with connections to the former members of the Wild Geese-the bad old days are back in Billy's life with a vengeance, tearing apart enduring friendships forged in the urban trenches and even threatening the safety of his family. Razor-sharp and propulsively written, The Whites introduces Harry Brandt--a new master of American crime fiction.

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ALL THE OLD KNIVES
Olen Steinhauer
Cover of ALL THE OLD KNIVES

ALL THE OLD KNIVES

by Olen Steinhauer · Minotaur

1 wks on list

From Olen Steinhauer, the author of New York Times bestseller The Tourist, comes his intimate, most cerebral, and most shocking novel to date, All the Old Knives—now a Major Motion Picture Starring Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton. Six years ago in Vienna, terrorists took over a hundred hostages, and the rescue attempt went terribly wrong. The CIA's Vienna station was witness to this tragedy, gathering intel from its sources during those tense hours, assimilating facts from the ground and from an agent on the inside. So when it all went wrong, the question had to be asked: Had their agent been compromised, and how? Two of the CIA's case officers in Vienna, Henry Pelham and Celia Harrison, were lovers at the time, and on the night of the hostage crisis Celia decided she'd had enough. She left the agency, married and had children, and is now living an ordinary life in the idyllic town of Carmel-by-the-Sea. Henry is still a case officer in Vienna, and has traveled to California to see her one more time, to relive the past, maybe, or to put it behind him once and for all. But neither of them can forget that long-ago question: Had their agent been compromised? If so, how? Each also wonders what role tonight's dinner companion might have played in the way the tragedy unfolded six years ago.

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DEAD HEAT
Patricia Briggs
Cover of DEAD HEAT

DEAD HEAT

by Patricia Briggs · Ace

A birthday vacation to Arizona turns deadly for mated werewolves Charles and Anna, who discover that a dangerous Fae is replacing human children with simulacrums as part of a brewing war against humanity. By the #1 New York Times best-selling author of the Mercy Thompson novels.

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