TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of January 30, 2011

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1
NEW
THE INNER CIRCLE
Brad Meltzer
Cover of THE INNER CIRCLE

THE INNER CIRCLE

by Brad Meltzer · Grand Central

1 wks at #1 · 1 on list

The darkest secret of the U.S. Presidency is about to be revealed. Beecher White, a young archivist for the US government, has always been the keeper of other people's stories, never a part of the story himself . . . Until now. While Beecher is showing Clementine Kaye, his first childhood crush, around the National Archives, they accidentally uncover a priceless artefact - a two-hundred-year-old dictionary once belonging to George Washington. Suddenly Beecher and Clementine are entangled in a web of conspiracy and murder. Beecher's race to learn the truth behind this mysterious treasure will lead to a code that conceals a disturbing secret from the nation's founding. A secret that some believe is worth killing for.

2
NEW
THE SENTRY
Robert Crais
Cover of THE SENTRY

THE SENTRY

by Robert Crais · Putnam

1 wks on list

After the nightmare of Hurricane Katrina, Dru Rayne and her uncle relocated to Los Angeles. Five years later, their struggling restaurant faces a different danger. When Joe Pike witnesses Dru's uncle beaten by a neighbourhood gang, he offers his own brand of protection, but neither Dru nor her uncle want his help. And neither do the federal agents mysteriously watching their store . . . But Pike is falling for Dru, and won't back away whether she wants his help or not. As the violence escalates, Joe discovers Dru and her uncle are not who they seem - and now a vengeful, murderous force from their past is catching up with them...

5
3
WHAT THE NIGHT KNOWS
Dean Koontz
Cover of WHAT THE NIGHT KNOWS

WHAT THE NIGHT KNOWS

by Dean Koontz · Bantam

3 wks on list

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In the late summer of a long-ago year, Alton Turner Blackwood brutally murdered four families. His savage spree ended only when he himself was killed by the last survivor of the last family, a fourteen-year-old boy. Half a continent away and two decades later, someone is murdering families again, re-creating in detail Blackwood’s crimes. Homicide detective John Calvino is certain that his own family—his wife and three children—will be targets, just as his parents and sisters were victims on that distant night when he was fourteen and killed their slayer. As a detective, John is a man of reason who deals in cold facts. But an extraordinary experience convinces him that sometimes death is not a one-way journey, that sometimes the dead return. Includes the bonus novella Darkness Under the Sun and an excerpt from Dean Koontz's The City!

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1
THREE SECONDS
Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom
Cover of THREE SECONDS

THREE SECONDS

by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom · Silver Oak

2 wks on list

** THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR NEW HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER, 'THE INFORMER' ** ** WINNER OF THE 2011 CWA INTERNATIONAL DAGGER ** ** NEW YORK TIMES TOP 5 BESTSELLER ** 'Extraordinarily compelling' Daily Mail 'The action is non-stop' The Times 'Three Seconds is just about how long it feels it takes to read Three Seconds . . . Terrific' Time Out SCANDINAVIAN CRIME DOES NOT GET MORE EXPLOSIVE. ONE MURDER. Piet Hoffmann is the Swedish police force's best undercover operative. Not even his family know of his double identity. Yet when a drug deal with the Polish mafia goes fatally wrong, his secret life begins to crumble around him. TWO MEN. Detective Inspector Ewert Grens is charged with investigating the drug-related killing. Unaware of Hoffmann's true identity, he believes himself to be on the trail of a dangerous psychopath. THREE SECONDS. Hoffmann must desperately maintain his cover; else he is a dead man walking. But, in the doggedly-perceptive Ewert Grens, he has just made the most relentless of enemies. Can't get enough of DCI Ewert Grens? Then check out Cell 8, named by the Sunday Times as one of the 60 Best Thrillers and Crime Novels of the Past 6 Years.

11
3
ROOM
Emma Donoghue
Cover of ROOM

ROOM

by Emma Donoghue · Little, Brown

10 wks on list
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6
THE OUTLAWS
W. E. B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV
Cover of THE OUTLAWS

THE OUTLAWS

by W. E. B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV · Putnam

3 wks on list

The former Presidential Agent’s Office of Organizational Analysis has been disbanded. Charley Castillo and his colleagues have retired, and the sudden death of the President has brought an adversarial Commander-in-Chief into the Oval Office... But just because Castillo is out of the government doesn’t mean he’s out of business. He still has the skills and the manpower to do what others can’t or won’t do. And his first job is a real killer. A barrel filled with some nightmarishly lethal biohazard material has been shipped to an Army medical lab—material that Castillo and his men were supposed to have destroyed on a mission. Clearly, the message is that more of the deadly material remains. But who has it? And what do they want? With lives at stake—including his own—Castillo knows that he’s not going to like the answers one damn bit...

13
3
SECRETS TO THE GRAVE
Tami Hoag
Cover of SECRETS TO THE GRAVE

SECRETS TO THE GRAVE

by Tami Hoag · Dutton

3 wks on list

A second violent crime shocks the small town of Oak Knoll in this “chilling” (USA Today) thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag. California, 1986—A 911 call from a small child sends the idyllic town of Oak Knoll into a tailspin. Then a brutal crime scene is discovered: the body of Marissa Fordham with her young daughter, Haley, injured but alive. Sheriff’s detective Tony Mendez faces a puzzle with nothing but pieces that won’t fit. To assist with his witness, Haley, he calls teacher-turned-child advocate Anne Leone, who’s already the star witness in a sensational murder trial. As Tony and Anne begin to peel back the layers of Marissa Fordham’s life, they find a clue fragment here, another there. And just when it seems Marissa has taken her secrets to the grave, they uncover a fact that puts Anne and Haley directly in the sights of a killer: Marissa Fordham never existed.

14
2
DAMAGE
John Lescroart
Cover of DAMAGE

DAMAGE

by John Lescroart · Dutton

2 wks on list

His career derailed by the vengeful billionaire Curtlee family for his part in convicting one of their number for murder, former homicide detective Abe Glitsky learns that the killer has won a retrial at the same time a star witness has been murdered.

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