TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of December 12, 2004

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1
NEW
NIGHT FALL
Nelson DeMille
Cover of NIGHT FALL

NIGHT FALL

by Nelson DeMille · Warner

1 wks at #1 · 1 on list

New York Times bestselling author Nelson DeMille does it again with Elite Anti-terrorist Task Force Agents John Corey and Kate Mayfield discovering corruption deep in the FBI and they set out to find the truth. On a Long Island beach at dusk, Bob Mitchell and JanetWhitney conduct their illicit love affair in front of a video camera, set to record each steamy moment. Suddenly a terrible explosion lights up the sky. Grabbing the camera, the couple flees as approaching police cars speed toward the scene. Five years later, the crash of Flight 800 has been attributed to a mechanical mal-function. But for John Corey and Kate Mayfield, both members of the Elite Anti-terrorist Task Force, the case is not closed. Suspecting a cover-up at the highest levels and disobeying orders, they set out to find the one piece of evidence that will prove the truth about what really happened to Flight 800-the videotape that shows a couple making love on the beach and the last moments of the doomed airliner.

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

THE DA VINCI CODE

by Dan Brown · Doubleday

89 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)!

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THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN
Mitch Albom
Cover of THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN

THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN

by Mitch Albom · Hyperion

62 wks on list

Plot Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him, as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here" Personal Details Collection Status In Collection Index 10 Read It Yes Links Amazon US Product Details LoC Classification PS3601.L335F59 2003 Dewey 813/.6

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LONDON BRIDGES
James Patterson
Cover of LONDON BRIDGES

LONDON BRIDGES

by James Patterson · Little, Brown

3 wks on list

When the world's largest cities are seized by terrorists who threaten to set off deadly bombs unless their demands are met, Alex Cross heads a joint investigation by the FBI, CIA, and Interpol to outmaneuver two vicious criminals known as the Weasel and the Wolf. By the author of The Big Bad Wolf.

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THE CHRISTMAS THIEF
Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark

THE CHRISTMAS THIEF

by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark · Simon & Schuster/Scribner

3 wks on list

A tree chosen as the Rockefeller Center's Christmas tree was cut down and carted away by unknown persons but did they know a flask filled with diamonds was hidden in one of the branches?

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TWISTED
Jonathan Kellerman
Cover of TWISTED

TWISTED

by Jonathan Kellerman · Ballantine

1 wks on list

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER It came in a plain brown wrapper, no return address—an audiocassette recording of a horrifying, soul-lacerating scream, followed by the sound of a childlike voice chanting: “Bad love. Bad love. Don’t give me the bad love.” For Alex Delaware the tape is the first intimation that he is about to enter a living nightmare. Others soon follow: disquieting laughter echoing over a phone line that suddenly goes dead, and a chilling act of trespass and vandalism. He has become the target of a carefully orchestrated campaign of vague threats and intimidation rapidly building to a crescendo as harassment turns to terror, mischief to madness. “A wonderful, roller-coaster ride . . . a guaranteed page-turner.”—USA Today With the help of his friend, LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, Alex uncovers a series of violent deaths that may follow a diabolical pattern. And if he fails to decipher the twisted logic of the stalker’s mind games, Alex will be the next to die. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Jonathan Kellerman's Guilt.

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SKELETON MAN
Tony Hillerman
Cover of SKELETON MAN

SKELETON MAN

by Tony Hillerman · HarperCollins

1 wks on list

Hailed as "a wonderful storyteller" by the New York Times, and a "national and literary cultural sensation" by the Los Angeles Times, bestselling author Tony Hillerman is back with another blockbuster novel featuring the legendary Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and Sergeant Jim Chee. Former Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn comes out of retirement to help investigate what seems to be a trading post robbery. A simple-minded kid nailed for the crime is the cousin of an old colleague of Sergeant Jim Chee. He needs help and Chee, and his fiancée Bernie Manuelito, decide to provide it. Proving the kid's innocence requires finding the remains of one of 172 people whose bodies were scattered among the cliffs of the Grand Canyon in an epic airline disaster 50 years in the past. That passenger had handcuffed to his wrist an attaché case filled with a fortune in -- one of which seems to have turned up in the robbery. But with Hillerman, it can't be that simple. The daughter of the long-dead diamond dealer is also seeking his body. So is a most unpleasant fellow willing to kill to make sure she doesn't succeed. These two tense tales collide deep in the canyon at the place where an old man died trying to build a cult reviving reverence for the Hopi guardian of the Underworld. It's a race to the finish in a thunderous monsoon storm to see who will survive, who will be brought to justice, and who will finally unearth the Skeleton Man.

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HOUR GAME
David Baldacci
Cover of HOUR GAME

HOUR GAME

by David Baldacci · Warner

5 wks on list

A man accused of burglary seems innocent . . . but in this #1 New York Times bestseller, two ex-Secret Service agents quickly learn that nothing is more dangerous than the truth. A woman is found murdered in the woods. It seems like a simple case but it soon escalates into a terrible nightmare. Someone is replicating the killing styles of the most infamous murderers of all time. No one knows this criminal's motives...or who will die next. Two ex-Secret Service agents, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, have been hired to defend a man's innocence in a burglary involving an aristocratic family. Then a series of secrets leads the partners right into the frantic hunt that is confounding even the FBI. Now King and Maxwell are playing the Hour Game, uncovering one horrifying revelation after another and putting their lives in danger. For the closer they get to the truth, the closer they get to the most shocking surprise of all.

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WHITEOUT
Ken Follett
Cover of WHITEOUT

WHITEOUT

by Ken Follett · Dutton

1 wks on list

"Everyone likes a page-turner, and Follett is the best." —The Philadelphia Inquirer "A hell of a storyteller" (Entertainment Weekly), #1 New York Times bestselling author Ken Follett reinvents the thriller with each new novel. But nothing matches the intricate knife-edge drama of Whiteout. . . . A missing canister of a deadly virus. A lab technician bleeding from the eyes. Toni Gallo, the security director of a Scottish medical research firm, knows she has problems, but she has no idea of the nightmare to come. As a Christmas Eve blizzard whips out of the north, several people, Toni among them, converge on a remote family house. All have something to gain or lose from the drug developed to fight the virus. As the storm worsens, the emotional sparks—jealousies, distrust, sexual attraction, rivalries—crackle; desperate secrets are revealed; hidden traitors and unexpected heroes emerge. Filled with startling twists at every turn, Whiteout rockets Follett into a class by himself.

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THE GODFATHER RETURNS
Mark Winegardner
Cover of THE GODFATHER RETURNS

THE GODFATHER RETURNS

by Mark Winegardner · Random House

2 wks on list

Beginning in 1955, when Puzo's novel ends, Mark Winegardner fills the gaps in e saga of the Corleone family.

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METRO GIRL
Janet Evanovich
Cover of METRO GIRL

METRO GIRL

by Janet Evanovich · HarperCollins

4 wks on list

When her wild and womanizing younger brother goes missing in southern Florida, Alexandra Barnaby endures humidity, sunburn, and bugs in her search for him alongside Sam Hooker, who believes Barnaby's brother has stolen his boat.

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THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA
Philip Roth
Cover of THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA

THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA

by Philip Roth · Houghton Mifflin

10 wks on list

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY “It's not a prophecy; it's a nightmare. . . . [A] sinuous and brilliant book, with its extreme sweetness, its black pain, and its low, ceaseless cackle.” —The New Yorker “Huge, inflammatory, painfully moving. . . .Far and away the most outward-looking, expansive. . . book Roth has written." —The Washington Post Book World “A terrific political novel. . . . sinister, vivid, dreamlike. . . creepily plausible." —The New York Times Book Review “Ambitous and chilling . . . a breathtaking leap of imagination. . . . The writing is brilliant.” —USA Today In an extraordinary feat of narrative invention, Philip Roth imagines an alternate history where Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the 1940 presidential election to heroic aviator and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh. Shortly thereafter, Lindbergh negotiates a cordial “understanding” with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism. For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh’s election is the first in a series of ruptures that threatens to destroy his small, safe corner of America—and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother.

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A REDBIRD CHRISTMAS
Fannie Flagg
Cover of A REDBIRD CHRISTMAS

A REDBIRD CHRISTMAS

by Fannie Flagg · Random House

The time: 1946-2000. The Place: Elmwood Springs, Missouri. Right in the middle of everywhere, which could be anywhere. World War II has ended and the joyous transitions to peace are being - mostly - embraced. At the heart of the novel is the inimitable Neighbour Dorothy, broadcasting daily, with Mother Smith on the organ, from her front room, via the tower in her backyard, to an eager, and at times lonely, audience across the state - who often hear more than her own family would like about the antics of wayward son Bobby and adolescent Anna Lee. And meet the Oatman Family, white Southern Gospel Singers at a pharmaceutical convention in Memphis, where they blow the place away; timid, little Betty Raye Oatman who can't stand the life and ends up in a Governor's mansion; Hamm Sparks, a super-salesman everyone likes and trusts, who soon sells all of Missouri; and the phenomena known as the Sunset Club, Dinner on the Ground and the Funeral King.; not to mention the changing face of small-town America. Humour and poignancy, wit and nostalgia, Fannie Flagg mixes the cocktail of small-town American life to perfection.

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