TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of February 16, 2003

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THE LOVELY BONES
Alice Sebold
Cover of THE LOVELY BONES

THE LOVELY BONES

by Alice Sebold · Little, Brown

10 wks at #1 · 32 on list

Susie Salmon is just like any other young American girl. She wants to be beautiful, adores her charm bracelet and has a crush on a boy from school. There's one big difference though – Susie is dead. Add: Now she can only observe while her family manage their grief in their different ways. Susie is desperate to help them and there might be a way of reaching them... Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones is a unique coming-of-age tale that captured the hearts of readers throughout the world. Award-winning playwright Bryony Lavery has adapted it for this unforgettable play about life after loss.

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CROSSROADS OF TWILIGHT
Robert Jordan
Cover of CROSSROADS OF TWILIGHT

CROSSROADS OF TWILIGHT

by Robert Jordan · Tor/Tom Doherty

4 wks on list

The Wheel of Time ® is a PBS Great American Read Selection! Now in development for TV! Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel of Time® by Robert Jordan has captivated millions of readers around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters. The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. Fleeing from Ebou Dar with the kidnapped Daughter of the Nine Moons, whom he is fated to marry, Mat Cauthon learns that he can neither keep her nor let her go, not in safety for either of them, for both the Shadow and the might of the Seanchan Empire are in deadly pursuit. Perrin Aybara seeks to free his wife, Faile, a captive of the Shaido, but his only hope may be an alliance with the enemy. Can he remain true to his friend Rand and to himself? For his love of Faile, Perrin is willing to sell his soul. At Tar Valon, Egwene al'Vere, the young Amyrlin of the rebel Aes Sedai, lays siege to the heart of Aes Sedai power, but she must win quickly, with as little bloodshed as possible, for unless the Aes Sedai are reunited, only the male Asha'man will remain to defend the world against the Dark One, and nothing can hold the Asha'man themselves back from total power except the Aes Sedai and a unified White Tower. In Andor, Elayne Trakland fights for the Lion Throne that is hers by right, but enemies and Darkfriends surround her, plotting her destruction. If she fails, Andor may fall to the Shadow, and the Dragon Reborn with it. Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn himself, has cleansed the Dark One's taint from the male half of the True Source, and everything has changed. Yet nothing has, for only men who can channel believe that saidin is clean again, and a man who can channel is still hated and feared-even one prophesied to save the world. Now, Rand must gamble again, with himself at stake, and he cannot be sure which of his allies are really enemies. TV series update: "Sony will produce along with Red Eagle Entertainment and Radar Pictures. Rafe Judkins is attached to write and executive produce. Judkins previously worked on shows such as ABC’s “Agents of SHIELD,” the Netflix series “Hemlock Grove,” and the NBC series “Chuck.” Red Eagle partners Rick Selvage and Larry Mondragon will executive produce along with Radar’s Ted Field and Mike Weber. Darren Lemke will also executive produce, with Jordan’s widow Harriet McDougal serving as consulting producer." —Variety The Wheel of Time® New Spring: The Novel #1 The Eye of the World #2 The Great Hunt #3 The Dragon Reborn #4 The Shadow Rising #5 The Fires of Heaven #6 Lord of Chaos #7 A Crown of Swords #8 The Path of Daggers #9 Winter's Heart #10 Crossroads of Twilight #11 Knife of Dreams By Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson #12 The Gathering Storm #13 Towers of Midnight #14 A Memory of Light By Robert Jordan Warrior of the Altaii By Robert Jordan and Teresa Patterson The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time By Robert Jordan, Harriet McDougal, Alan Romanczuk, and Maria Simons The Wheel of Time Companion By Robert Jordan and Amy Romanczuk Patterns of the Wheel: Coloring Art Based on Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time

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FINAL JUSTICE
W. E. B. Griffin
Cover of FINAL JUSTICE

FINAL JUSTICE

by W. E. B. Griffin · Putnam

1 wks on list

Matt Payne finds himself saddled with three homicide cases and then is additionally challenged with showing a movie star "the real stuff" for the making of a police movie.

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THE FIRST LAW
John Lescroart
Cover of THE FIRST LAW

THE FIRST LAW

by John Lescroart · Dutton

1 wks on list

A New York Times Bestseller Recovering from a near-fatal gunshot wound, Lieutenant Abe Glitsky is back at the San Francisco Police Department. But instead of his old job as chief of homicide, he's assigned to a desk job in payroll. He has no business investigating murders -- until his father's closest friend is shot dead in a pawnshop. Prodded by his father, Abe inquires about the case. The brass tells him to stay out of it. They've already targeted their prime suspect: John Holiday, proprietor of a run-down local bar, and a friend and client of Dismas Hardy. But while Dismas Hardy built a solid legal practice and a happy family, Holiday didn't follow the same path. Still, Hardy finds ample reason to question Holiday's guilt.

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THE ARRAIGNMENT
Steve Martini
Cover of THE ARRAIGNMENT

THE ARRAIGNMENT

by Steve Martini · Putnam

4 wks on list

In this gripping New York Times bestseller, a double murder leads lawyer Paul Madriani into a web of international intrigue and conspiracy. The verdict on The Jury was unanimous. Larry King in USA Today called it “a cracklin’ good read” and Publishers Weekly proclaimed it as “one of Martini’s best novels to date.” Now, The Arraignment takes Madriani into uncharted territory—into the minds of men whose murderous greed knows no bounds...and onto the front lines of the South American drug war.

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SONS OF FORTUNE
Jeffrey Archer
Cover of SONS OF FORTUNE

SONS OF FORTUNE

by Jeffrey Archer · St. Martin's

4 wks on list

New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Archer-returns with a powerful tale of twins separated by fate and reunited by destiny in Sons of Fortune. In Hartford, Connecticut, in the late 1940s, a set of twins is parted at birth-not by accident. Nat Cartwright goes home with his parents, a schoolteacher and an insurance salesman, while his twin brother begins his days as Fletcher Davenport, son of a millionaire and his society wife. During the 1950s and 1960s, the two brothers grow up apart, following similar paths that take them in different directions. Nat leaves college at the University of Connecticut to serve in Vietnam, then finishes school, earns his MBA, and becomes a successful currency dealer. Fletcher, meanwhile, graduates from Yale University with a bachelor's and a law degree, going on to distinguish himself as a criminal defense lawyer. At various times in their lives, both men are confronted with challenges and obstacles, tragedy and betrayal, loss and hardship, before they both decide to run for governor, unaware they are brothers.... In the tradition of Jeffrey Archer's most popular books, Sons of Fortune is as much a chronicle of a nation in transition as it is the story of the making of these two men -and how they eventually discover the truth-and its tragic consequences.

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PREY
Michael Crichton
Cover of PREY

PREY

by Michael Crichton · HarperCollins

10 wks on list

Deep in the remote Nevada desert, eight people are trapped inside of the Xymos Corporation by a rapidly evolving swarm of predatory molecules that have massed together to form a powerful and intelligent organism that is targeting its creators.

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BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON
Dean Koontz
Cover of BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON

BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON

by Dean Koontz · Bantam

6 wks on list

Like his most recent #1 "New York Times" bestsellers, "One Door Away from Heaven" and "From the Corner of His Eye, " Koontz's new book goes to the heart of what it means to be truly good in a time more than ever beset by malice.

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THE BONE VAULT
Linda Fairstein
Cover of THE BONE VAULT

THE BONE VAULT

by Linda Fairstein · Scribner

2 wks on list

The New York Times bestselling author of Devil's Bridge and renowned former Manhattan prosecutor delivers a mesmerizing Alexandra Cooper novel set at the crossroads of big money, high culture, and murder... The Bone Vault begins in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's glorious Temple of Dendur, where wealthy donors have gathered to celebrate a controversial new exhibit. An uneasy mix of scholarship, showbiz, and aggressive marketing, "A Modern Bestiary" will be a joint venture of the Met and the American Museum of Natural History. With its IMAX time trips and Rembrandt refrigerator magnets, the "Bestiary" has raised fierce opposition from some of New York's museum elite. Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper, off duty for the evening, observes the developing tensions with bemused interest until Met director Pierre Thibodaux pulls her aside. He needs her advice. There's an urgent problem out at a loading dock on a New Jersey pier. A Twelfth Dynasty mummified princess, enclosed for eternity in a huge stone sarcophagus, is about to take a long voyage to Cairo as part of a routine museum exchange. But Cleopatra is missing, and in her place is the not-so-mummified body of a woman many centuries younger than her royal predecessor. Who is this woman with the small physique, the dark hair, and the shiny barrette? What is her connection, if any, to the rarefied world of priceless art and objects? And how and when did she become entombed in the sarcophagus? Teaming with cops Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, Alex must explore behind the scenes at the elegant but severe Metropolitan, travel uptown to the remote setting of the Cloisters and its medieval trove of funerary art, and on to the massive array of beasts and bones at the Museum of Natural History. Somewhere deep within the bowels of one of these great cultural centers, a killer may wait. Atmospheric, chilling, and rich with the kind of procedural authenticity that only Linda Fairstein can provide, The Bone Vault is a page-turning tour de force from one of crime writing's brightest stars.

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I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT
Allison Pearson
Cover of I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT

I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT

by Allison Pearson · Knopf

10 wks on list

Delightfully smart and heartbreakingly poignant, Allison Pearson’s smash debut novel has exploded onto bestseller lists as “The national anthem for working mothers.” Hedge-fund manager, wife, and mother of two, Kate Reddy manages to juggle nine currencies in five time zones and keep in step with the Teletubbies. But when she finds herself awake at 1:37 a.m. in a panic over the need to produce a homemade pie for her daughter’s school, she has to admit her life has become unrecognizable. With panache, wisdom, and uproarious wit, I Don’t Know How She Does It brilliantly dramatizes the dilemma of every working mom.

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LIFE OF PI
Yann Martel
Cover of LIFE OF PI

LIFE OF PI

by Yann Martel · Harcourt

7 wks on list

The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true?

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THE LAST JIHAD
Joel C. Rosenberg
Cover of THE LAST JIHAD

THE LAST JIHAD

by Joel C. Rosenberg · Forge/ Tom Doherty

8 wks on list

Jon Bennett is a senior White House advisor, but nothing has prepared him for the terror that he will face. Saddam Hussein dispatches his top hit men to assassinate the President of the United States. Iraqi terrorists spread carnage throughout London, Paris, and Riyadh ... and the Butcher of Baghdad has a nuclear ace in his hand that he has not yet played.

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LIGHT IN SHADOW
Jayne Ann Krentz
Cover of LIGHT IN SHADOW

LIGHT IN SHADOW

by Jayne Ann Krentz · Putnam

Zoe Luce is a successful interior designer in the Arizona town of Whispering Springs who's developed an unusual career specialty-helping recently divorced clients redesign their homes, to help them forget the past and start anew. But Zoe knows that some things can't be covered up with a coat of paint. And when she senses that one of her clients may be hiding a dark secret, she enlists P.I. Ethan Truax to find the truth. Working together, they solve the mystery . . . and barely escape with their lives. But Ethan's exquisite detection skills are starting to backfire on Zoe: she never wanted to let him find out about her former life; she never wanted to reveal her powerful, inexplicable gift for sensing the history hidden within a house's walls; she never wanted him to know that "Zoe Luce" doesn't really exist. She never wanted to fall in love with him. Now, no matter how much she resists, Ethan may be her only hope-because the people she's been running from have found her. And just when Zoe dares to dream of a normal life and a future with the man she loves, her own past starts to shadow her every step-and threatens to take her back into a nightmare.

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