Mysteries Abound in Top Fiction

There’s a list in the literary world that means far more than any box office rankings, and that list is, of course, the New York Times bestseller list.

In hardcover fiction, John Grisham has done it again. His new novel, The Appeal, has been ranked number one for two weeks now, and, as usual, is about politics and the legal system.

New to the list is number two, 7th Heaven, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, and features Detective Lindsay Boxer and the Women’s Murder Club on the hunt for an arsonist and a missing teenager.

Ranked third this week (number two last week) and on the list for three weeks now is Duma Key, by Stephen King, about a Minnesota contractor who moves to Florida to recover from an injury and begins to create paintings with mysterious power.

Ranked fourth in its first week on the list is Stranger in Paradise, by Robert B. Parker, about Jesse Stone, the police chief of Paradise, Mass., who must protect a hit man’s intended victim.

Holding fifth place on the list for two weeks straight is A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini, which has been on the list for 38 weeks now and is about a friendship between two women in Afghanistan against the backdrop of 30 years of war.

In the nonfiction category, the hardcover top five include In Defense Of Food by Michael Pollan; An Inconvenient Book by Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe; Real Change by Newt Gingrich with Vince Haley and Rick Tyler; I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert, Richard Dahm, Paul Dinello, Allison Silverman et al; and Tom Cruise by Andrew Morton.