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Crime Fiction Stars 1998: July - December

 

July

  • Sunset Limited
    Author: Burke, James Lee
    Publisher: Doubleday List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385488424 Date: 1998
    starBookliststarPW
    PW's Best 98 Books selection
    Burke is at the top of his form in this story of racial violence, class warfare, and the cruelty that privilege often brings. The 40-year-old crucifixation of prominent labor leader Jack Flynn remains an unsolved atrocity. When Flynn's daughter, a photojournalist drawn to controversial subjects, comes to New Iberia, it becomes clear that her family's bloodstained past is not going to stay buried.
  • Eleven Days
    Author: Harstad, Donald
    Publisher: Doubleday $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385488947 Date: 1998
    starLJ
    This Fargo set in Iowa is a small-town shocker inspired by actual events. Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman is in for the time of his life after a 911 call from a terrified woman sets him on the path to unearthing the dirty secrets hidden in his small community.
  • Point of Origin
    Author: Cornwell, Patricia
    Publisher: Putnam $ 25.95 ISBN: 0399143947 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    America's leading crime writer combines her literary talent and style with a fierce commitment to justice in her thrilling and complex new novel - a gripping story that pits Kay Scarpetta, Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner, against and audacious and wily killer who uses fire to mask his crimes.
    Suggested Reading: Crime Scene Investigations
  • Four to Score
    Author: Evanovich, Janet
    Publisher: St Martin's List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312185863 Date: 1998
    starBooklist
    Bounty-hunting Jersey girl Stephanie Plum is hot on the trail of a revenge-seeking waitress wanted for bail jumping, theft, and extortion. Aided by a plethora of eccentric characters, including a funeral aficionado, an ex-hooker, and a transvestite rock musician, Steph's humor and attitude never waver - even when her apartment is firebombed!
    Suggested Reading: If You Like Janet Evanovich
  • Bombay Ice
    Author: Forbes, Leslie
    Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0374115303 Date: 1998
    starKirkusstarPW
    In Bombay, the brutal murder of a transvestite with links to "Bollywood" leads to events that eerily threaten two sisters, in this thrilling novel of alchemy, murder, and violent weather.
  • Fever Season
    Author: Hambly, Barbara
    Publisher: Bantam List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0553102540 Date: 1998
    starPW
    With a seductive prose style and period detail reminiscent of The Alienist, bestselling author Hambly continues the "magically rich and poignant" story of a free man of color in 1830's New Orleans.
    Suggested Reading: New Orleans
  • The Stalking of Sheila Quinn
    Author: Healy, Jeremiah F.
    Publisher: Dunn/St Martins List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312186673 Date: 1998
    starPW
    A criminal defense attorney is stalked by the very murder defendant she gets out on bail, in this electrifying new thriller by the author the Shamus Award-winning John Cuddy series.
    Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
  • The Dog Who Bit a Policeman
    Author: Kaminsky, Stuart M.
    Publisher: Mysterious List Price: $ 22 ISBN: 089296667x Date: 1998
    starPWstarBooklist
    PW's Best 98 Books selection
    Moscow Police Inspector Porifry Rostnikov returns in another book in the Edgar Award-winning series - this time putting himself in league with members of the Russian Mafia, who feel the murders of two of their own are related to new gang wars.
    Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up
  • Perjury
    Author: Latreille, Stan
    Publisher: Crown List Price: $ 25 Date: 1998
    ISBN: 0609601385
    starPW
    From a writer and Circuit Court judge poised to join the ranks of Scott Turow and Lisa Scottoline comes a fast-paced courtroom drama about lies, sexual abuse, and justice - and a lawyer who breaks an unwritten rule after he finds his passion for law jeopardized by his love for a beautiful, vulnerable client.
    Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
  • Canaletto and the Case of the Westminster Bridge
    Author: Laurence, Janet
    Publisher: St Martin's List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312185510 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
  • Picture of Innocence
    Author: McGown, Jill
    Publisher: Fawcett List Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0449002500 Date: 1998
    starPWstarBooklist
    When a man whom the entire community detested is murdered, Officer Judy Hill and her boss, Detective Inspector Lloyd, wonder why it didn't happen sooner. But beneath the obvious lies a labyrinth of deceit - and the truth lies deeper still - in the ninth intriguing mystery by the acclaimed author of Verdict Unsafe.
  • The Hearing
    Author: Mills, James
    Publisher: Warner List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0446519588 Date: 1998
    starPW
    Alabama Judge Gus Parham has it all: a successful career, a loving wife, and now, his crowning achievement - a nomination to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. But when an old enemy digs into his past, Gus is rocked by a revelation.
    Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
  • Masquerade
    Author: Satterthwait, Walter
    Publisher: St. Martins List Price: $ 22.95 Date: 1998
    ISBN: 0312186290
    starPW
    Set in le jazz hot Paris of 1923, the sequel to Escapade finds resourceful Pinkerton Phil Beaumont and ladies' paid companion Jane Turner investigating the death of a rich American publisher - along the way, running into such literary notables as Hemingway and Gertrude Stein.

August

  • Rainbow Six
    Author: Clancy, Tom
    Publisher: Putnam List Price: $ 27.95 ISBN: 0399143904 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    At the heart of Clancy's extraordinary new novel is John Clark, ex-Navy SEAL, a.k.a. "the dark side of Jack Ryan". And nothing is darker of more demonic than the peril he faces when he confronts Rainbow Six, a group of terrorists like none the world has ever before encountered.
  • Flying Blind
    Author: Collins, Max Allan
    Publisher: Dutton List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0525943110 Date: 1998
    starBooklist
  • The Coffin Dancer
    Author: Deaver, Jeffrey
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0684852853 Date: 1998
    starPWstarKirkus
    Quadriplegic detective Lincoln Rhyme, the foremost criminologist in the NYPD, is reunited with his beautiful protege, Amelia Sachs, in this masterful thriller about a chameleon-like assassin loose on the streets of New York City.
    Suggested Reading: Crime Scene Investigations
  • Prey Dancing: Clare Burtonall
    Author: Gash, Jonathan
    Publisher: Viking List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0670877646 Date: 1998
    starBooklist
    From the creator of the bestselling Lovejoy mysteries comes the second book in his new series, starring smart and sexy cardiologist Dr. Clare Burtonall. Clare's attempt to deliver a message to the boyfriend of a dying AIDS patient ironically makes her the target of his sworn vengeance for the woman's death.
  • Faithful Until Death
    Author: Graham, Caroline
    Publisher: St. Martins List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312185774 Date: 1998
    starPWstarKirkus
    Graham's series of crime novels starring Chief Inspector Barnaby has gotten rave reviews, and this one is destined for the same happy response. Simone and Alan Hollingsworth have recently moved to the village, and no one is very upset when Simone doesn't turn up at bell-ringing practice. (Can you imagine a more cozy begining?) But their next door neighbors have other ideas, although they don't know that the strange behavior of Alan Hollingsworth is connected in a surprising way to their overprotected only daughter Brenda. "A real winner" says Publishers Weekly. .
  • Wicked Games
    Author: Hart, Ellen
    Publisher: 0312186800 List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312186800 Date: 1998
    starBooklist
  • Deadfall
    Author: Henry, Sue
    Publisher: Avon List Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0380976617 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    To avoid the dangerous stranger who's been stalking her, an Iditarod musher seeks refuge on a desolate island in Kachemak Bay - and winds up playing a deadly game of hide-and-seek with a killer.
  • A Life for a Life
    Author: Hill, Ernest
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster List Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0684822784 Date: 1998
    starBooklist
    From the acclaimed author of Satisfied with Nothin comes a searing novel of the bond between an African-American father and the teenager who killed his son - a tale of violent self-destruction reclaimed by the power of love and forgiveness.
    Suggested Reading: African American Stars
  • On Beulah Height
    Author: Hill, Reginald
    Publisher: Delacorte List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385332793 Date: 1998
    starPWstarKirkusstarBooklist
    PW's Best 98 Books selection
    Inspector Andy Dalziel finds himself reliving an event that happened 15 years before, when a little girl goes missing and Dalziel and Peter Pascoe must delve into the past in search of answers that threaten to bring more pain.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
  • Roses, Roses: A Harpur and Iles Novel
    Author: James, Bill
    Publisher: Norton List Price: $ 23 Date: 1998
    ISBN: 0393046370
    starPWstarBooklist
    PW's Best 98 Books selection
    Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur's wife, Megan, lies stabbed to death in a railroad station parking lot. Shocked by this crime which has happened so close to home, Harpur outmaneuvers his jealous colleague Desmond Iles and moves swiftly into a shadowy world of informants to find the killer.
  • By Any Other Name
    Author: John, Katherine
    Publisher: St. Martins List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312185472 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    A novel that starts with a blood-stained man running naked down a busy highway in an icy rain promises much. In this story, author John delivers. At the hospital to which the police take him, the doctor diagnoses him as suffering from trauma-induced amnesia. He remembers nothing about himself, his recent past, or his situation. But he does know he is running for his life. And there is nothing wrong either with his intelligence, his multilingual ability, ir with the extraordinary training in escape and survival he seems to have received. This is a gorgeously suspenseful, and ultimately satisfying tale. .
  • Gone, Baby, Gone
    Author: Lehane, Dennis
    Publisher: William Morrow List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0688153321 Date: 1998
    starPWstarKirkus
    Hired to find a six-year-old girl who vanished from her home without a trace a full year before, Boston private eyes Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro find themselves caught up in a frenzy of media sensationalism after a second child disappears.
    Suggested Reading: Private Investigators
  • Cold Comfort
    Author: MacKay, Scott
    Publisher: Carroll & Graf List Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0786705078 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
  • A Rage of Innocents
    Author: Mitchell, Kay
    Publisher: St. Martins List Price: $ 20.95 ISBN: 0312186568 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    The crime rate in Chief Inspector Morrissey's village has taken a sudden jump. A woman is murdered, her body found in a ditch, a man is stabbed to death by a teen-age gang, a housewife is raped in her home. But the biggest shock of all is when police begin to investigate and find that there is a single secret at the heart of all these acts.
  • The Pied Piper
    Author:Pearson, Ridley
    Publisher: Hyperion List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0786863005 Date: 1998
    starPW
    In Seattle, they're calling him "The Pied Piper" because he comes at night and takes children away. To police lieutenant Lou Boldt and psychologist Daphne Matthews, it's clear this isn't about a single lunatic or random kidnappings: these crimes are well orchestrated, well executed, and most chilling of all, occurring in cities all over the country.
  • The Sweet Forever
    Author: Pelecanos, George P.
    Publisher: Little Brown List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0316691097 Date: 1998
    starPWstarBooklist
    PW's Best 98 Books selection
    One of the 1990's rising stars of crime fiction delivers a bold, brilliant tale of mystery, revenge, and survival in the 1980's, when cocaine and money ruled the city streets and even the good guys wanted a piece of the action. ACT note: Features Dimitri Karras and Marcus Clay (King Suckerman).
  • Boobytrap: A Nameless Detective Novel
    Author: Pronzini, Bill
    Publisher: Carroll & Graf List Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0786705051 Date: 1998
    starBooklist
  • Love is a Racket
    Author: Ridley, John
    Publisher: Knopf List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0375401423 Date: 1998
    starPW
    A brilliant new noir farce by the author of Stray Dogs. An ex-wannabe scriptwriter living on the skids in Hollywood stumbles on a street-hardened, exquisitely beautiful young homeless woman who inspires love... and the idea for the perfect con.
    Suggested Reading: African American Stars | Hollywood & Film Stars
  • The Shangai Murders: A Zhong Fong Mystery
    Author: Rotenberg, David
    Publisher: St. Martins List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312181752 Date: 1998
    starLJ
    A man's body is found cut into small pieces on a Shanghai street, in a case that earns the ironic name the "dim sum murders". Zhong Fong, the detective in charge, is haunted by the memory of his dead wife and beset by spies and roadblocks in the investigation. He is further upset when a Canadian theater director who had been staging a Chinese version of Twelfth Night starring Fong's wife at the time of her death, returns to Shanghai. There are further "dim sum" murders, and Fong is thrown into collaboration with the American widow of the first victim. Together, they rush to outwit their enemies within and without the establishment, find the killer, and ultimately save their own lives.
  • Bait
    Author: Songer, C.J.
    Publisher: Scribner List Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0684850427 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    Introducing Meg Gillis, a dynamic new heroine in the Kinsey Milhone tradition. When her security partner goes missing, Meg investigates and finds herself trapped in deadly circumstances.
    Suggested Reading: Debuts
  • Presidential Deal
    Author: Standiford, Les
    Publisher: Harpercollins List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0060186550 Date: 1998
    starPWstarKirkus
    Called the "unassailable new kingpin of the south Florida crime novel" (James Ellroy), Standiford shows how richly he deserves such praise in his most intricate, white-knuckle thriller yet, in which reluctant hero John Deal gets kidnapped - along with the First Lady of the United States.
    Suggested Reading: Florida Fiction
  • Sworn to Defend
    Author: Wheat, Carolyn
    Publisher: Berkley List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0425163032 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    Brooklyn lawyer Cass Jameson can't believe her luck! She finally has an innocent client. But after she proves the man innocent of robbery charges, she learns that he's guilty of a far worse crime.
    Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
  • Tomato Red
    Author: Woodrell, Daniel
    Publisher: Henry Holt List Price: $ 20 ISBN: 0805055770 Date: 1998
    starBooklist

September

  • The Miracle Strip
    Author: Bartholomew, Nancy
    Publisher: St. Martins List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312192991 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    Sierra Lavontini, Bartholomew's unlikely detective, is a stripper - pardon, an "exotic dancer" in Panama City, Florida. Her brash and sassy debut pits Sierra against the manipulations of a putative best friend, the Mob who left one of its members lying dead in the woman's bathroom, the police - indeed, everyone but her dog Fluffy. Sierra has no choice but to dig in her five-inch heels and find the killer on her own.

    Suggested Reading: If You Like Janet Evanovich
  • Vanishing Act: Robin Light
    Author: Block, Barbara
    Publisher: Kensington List Price: $ 20 ISBN: 1575663260 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    Amateur sleuth and pet store owner Robin Light returns to solve the mystery of a missing college student by the author of In Plain Sight and Chutes and Adders.
  • To Die in Provence
    Author: Bogner, Norman
    Publisher: Forge List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312866283 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    Hired by a successful TV producer to keep an eye on his spoiled, 19-year-old daughter while she studies French in Aix-en-Provence, Jennifer Bowen never imagines the lengths to which the girl will go to get what she wants. And what she wants is her ex-con boyfriend.
  • Verdict in Blood: A Joanna Kilbourn Mystery
    Author: Bowen, Gail
    Publisher: McClelland and Stewart List Price: $ 20.95 ISBN: 0771014872 Date: 1998
    starPW
  • Dead Room Farce
    Author: Brett, Simon
    Publisher: Dunne List Price: $ 20.95 ISBN: 0312192517 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    Devotees of the hapless actor, Charles Paris, find him far more lovable than the drama critics do. But at least his incompetent agent has found him a job with a bedroom farce that is touring the provinces. Charles, accumlating his all-too-usual hilariously bad reviews, also manages to get himself embroiled with two women, both of whom take his half-hearted protestations of affection more seriously than the actor himself does. Just to make matters worse, an old drinking companion who is now a producer of audiotapes gets himself murdered. Once more Charles plays detective. It must be said that he does this more successfully than he plays the character he portrays on stage. .
  • Black Coffee
    Author: Christie, Agatha and Charles Osborne
    Publisher: 031219241x List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 031219241x Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    In Christie's first novel since 1976, her beloved detective Hercule Poirot brings his "little gray cells" to bear on one last case. 1934: Poirot is summoned to Surrey by a prominent physicist who fears that someone in his household is attempting to steal his latest discovery, a formula critical to England's defense.
    ACT note: Adapted from a Christie play.
  • Mr. White's Confession
    Author: Clark, Robert
    Publisher: Picador List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0312192177 Date: 1998
    starLJstarKirkus
    Heading a police investigation into the brutal murder of a showgirl, Lt. Wesley Horner zeroes in on Herbert White, and eccentric recluse who spends his days writing gushing fan letters to Hollywood starlets.
  • The Best Defense
    Author: Cose, Ellis
    Publisher: HarperCollins List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 006071496x Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    When Felicia Fontaine is brought in to defend a man accused of killing his office rival over a question of affirmative action polices, she must go up against her former flame, prosecutor Mario Santiago.
    Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
  • The Long Finish: Aurelio Zen
    Author: Dibdin, Michael
    Publisher: Pantheon List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0375404295 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    After his adventure under the sun-drenched skies of Naples in Cosi Fan Tutti, Aurelio Zen finds himself back in Rome, being given yet another unorthodox assignment: to release the jailed scion of an important wine-growing family who is accused of a brutal murder.
    Suggested Reading: European Mysteries
  • Ghostly Murders: The Priest's Tale of Mystery and Murder As He Goes on Pilgimage from London to Canterbury
    Author: Doherty, P.C.
    Publisher: St. Martins List Price: $ 21.95 ISBN: 0312194188 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
  • A Species of Revenge
    Author: Eccles, Marjorie
    Publisher: St Martins List Price: $ 20.95 ISBN: 0312193386 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
  • Blast from the Past
    Author: Friedman, Kinky
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster List Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0684803798 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    The irrepressible Kinkster follows his bestselling novel Roadkill with a fresh, fabulous prequel in which down-and-out, sleazeball, ace detective Kinky Friedman explains where those Village Irregulars - Ratso, Rambam, and McGovern- come from and why.
  • 30 Seconds
    Author: Giancana, Sam
    Publisher: Warner List Price: $ 24.50 ISBN: 044651716x Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    The nephew of mobster Sam Giancana and coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Double Cross and his wife deliver a compelling tale of one innocent man's fight against the international drug trade, the CIA, and the Mafia.
    Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up
  • Body Language
    Author: Hall, James W.
    Publisher: St. Martins List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312192436 Date: 1998
    starLJstarPW
    From the nationally bestselling author of Under Cover of Daylight and Red Sky at Night comes an electrifying suspense novel about a female forensic photographer on the trail of a brutal killer with ties to her past. "James Hall's prose runs clean and fast as Gulf Stream waters" - The New York Times Book Review.
  • A Cold Day in Paradise
    Author: Hamilton, Steve
    Publisher: Dunne List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312192487 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    On a bitter, cold night in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, ex-Detroit cop Alex McKnight answers a cry for help from wealthy Edwin Fulton - only to find the man - a compulsive gambler who had gone to meet with a bookmaker - in his motel room with his throat cut.
    Suggested Reading: Private Investigators
  • The First Eagle
    Author: Hillerman, Tony
    Publisher: HarperCollins List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0060175818 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    The newest entry in Tony Hillerman's bestselling series finds legendary Navajo tribal policeman Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee on the trail of a killer of a researcher struggling to control a bubonic plague outbreak on the reservation.
    Suggested Reading: If You Like Tony Hillerman . . .
  • Iron Lake
    Author: Krueger, William Kent
    Publisher: Pocket List Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0671016962 Date: 1998
    starPWstarBooklist
    Once a Chicago cop, Corcoran "Cork" O'Connor, part Irish, part Anishinaabe Indian, now lives in a small Minnesota town. When the town's judge is brutally murdered, Cork finds himself in the middle of a mind-jolting case of conspiracy, corruption, and scandal.
  • Rumble, Tumble
    Author: Lansdale, Joe R.
    Publisher: Mysterious List Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0892966203 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    In this thrilling follow-up to critically acclaimed Bad Chili, crime fiction's hottest new star, Hap Collins, returns in a hilarious and suspenseful trip through the Southwest.
  • No Physical Evidence
    Author: Lee, Gus
    Publisher: Fawcett List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 044991139x Date: 1998
    starKirkus
  • The Policy
    Author: Lynch, Patrick
    Publisher: Dutton List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525943404 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    A young analyst for a profitable life insurance company preparing to make a big push into the business of health care coverage senses something wrong: the statistics are too good to be true, and her colleagues are suddenly making an enormous amount of money. Coincidence? Or is the firm somehow manipulating the system for its own gain?
    Suggested Reading: Bio Thrillers
  • The Wall
    Author: Marks, John
    Publisher: Riverhead List Price: $24.95 ISBN: 1573221228 Date: 1998
    starPW
    Written by a former Berlin bureau chief for U.S. News and World Report, this thriller takes readers on a chase through Central Europe in November, 1989, just as the Iron Curtain collapses.
  • Lost in Translation
    Author: Mones, Nicole
    Publisher: Delacorte List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0385319347 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    In a novel of searing intelligence and startling originality, Mones has created an unforgettable story of love and desire, of family ties and human conflict, and of one woman's struggle to lose herself in a foreign land - only to discover her home, her heart, and herself.
  • Blue
    Author: Padgett, Abigail
    Publisher: Mysterious List Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0892966718 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    In an exciting new series starring Blue McCarron, a gay, independent social psychologist/P.I. living outside San Diego. Hired by the brother of a 72-year-old woman who has confessed to a brutal murder, Blue uncovers the roots of an international conspiracy.
  • The Ape Who Guards the Balance: Amelia Peabody
    Author: Peters, Elizabeth
    Publisher: Avon List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0380976579 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    In 1907 Egypt, Egyptologist Ameila Peabody, along with her sexy yet irascible husband Radcliffe Emerson and their handsome son Ramses, investigates the mystery of an extraordinary papyrus Book of the Dead that may be connected to some recent murders.
  • A Bitter Feast
    Author: Rozan, S.J.
    Publisher: St. Martins List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312192592 Date: 1998
    starPWstarBookliststarKirkus
    Chinese-American P.I. Lydia Chin has lived in New York City's Chinatown all her life. But even to her, the complex interactions of this city-within-a-city are often elusive. A simple missing persons case leads Lydia and her sometime-partner Bill into a deadly conflict between powerful rivals, the Feds, and the NYPD. This is a brilliant thriller by one of the genre's emerging masters. From the St. Martin's catalog.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Private Investigators
  • A Criminal Appeal
    Author: Schanker, D.R.
    Publisher: St. Martins List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312192533 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
  • Reservation Road
    Author: Schwartz, John Burnham
    Publisher: Knopf List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0375402632 Date: 1998
    starPWstarKirkusstarBooklist
    A compulsively readable novel of feeling and suspense about two men and their families, and the hit-and-run death of a young boy. "A nonstop read about people locked in a terrible embrace" (Ward Just), Reservation Road is powerful, wrenching, impossible to put down.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
  • 82 Desire: Skip Langdon
    Author: Smith, Julie
    Publisher: Fawcett List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0449000605 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    Detective Talba Wallis is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a councilwoman's husband. But the private eye who hired Talba turns up with a bullet in his chest. At first, Police Detective Skip Langdon thinks it's just a small case with some big names. But something huge is starting to unfold--a violence motivated by that old demon . . . desire.
    Suggested Reading: New Orleans
  • An American Killing
    Author: Smith, Mary-Ann Tirone
    Publisher: Henry Holt List Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0805057021 Date: 1998
    starPWstarKirkus
    A smart-mouthed, fast-paced tale of marriage, murder, and double-dealing in the bestselling tradition of Olivia Goldsmith. When her lover - a high-profile D.C. insider - dies under mysterious circumstances, after urging her to look into an old murder case in his home district, Denise Burke soon fears she may be next on the hit list.
    Suggested Reading: Political Fiction
  • Death in Summer
    Author: Trevor, William
    Publisher: Viking List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 067088202x Date: 1998
    starPWstarKirkus
    PW's Best 98 Books selection
    A chilling new novel by the author of Felicia's Journey. After both his wife and mother-in-law die suddenly, Thaddeus's household seems to settle down. But then an unwelcome guest appears, heralding the third and final of the summer tragedies.
  • Whacking Jimmy
    Author: Wolf, William L.
    Publisher: Villard List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0375501738 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    The Freshman meets Carl Hiaasen in this hip and hilarious crime novel of an unwilling mafia heir's introduction to the ways of his family.
    Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up
  • Quicksand
    Author: Wood, William P.
    Publisher: Kensington List Price: $ 22 ISBN: 1575663244 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    After his wife Alison, First Assistant United States Attorney, unwittingly recruits an ex-CIA operative and former international arms dealer to help in an undercover operation, Brock Andrews learns that the man has a dangerous agenda of his own.

October

  • A Perfect Crime
    Author: Abrahams, Peter
    Publisher: Ballantine List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0345423844 Date: 1998
    starBooklist
    The masterful new suspense novel in the bestselling tradition of Michael Connelly and James Patterson, from the acclaimed author of The Fan. In Peter Abraham's stunning new thriller, four lives hang in the balance - as a brilliant madman prepares A Perfect Crime.
  • Crossroad Blues: Nick Travers
    Author: Atkins, Ace
    Publisher: St Martins List Price: $ 21.95 ISBN: 0312192541 Date: 1998
    starPW
    On August 15, 1938, the most celebrated figure in blues history, Robert Johnson, was murdered outside a Greenwood, Mississippi, juke joint. More than 50 years after, a college professor, following rumors of nine unknown Johnson recordings, disappears in the Mississippi Delta. Blues historian Nick Travers leaves New Orleans to track down the missing professor - and to unravel the greatest mystery in all of blues lore.
    Suggested Reading: Music | New Orleans
  • The Time of the Wolf
    Author: Blankenship, William D.
    Publisher: Donald I. Fine List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 1556115482 Date: 1998
    starBooklist
  • Everbody Dies : Matt Scudder
    Author: Block, Lawrence
    Publisher: William Morrow List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 068814182x Date: 1998
    starPWstarKirkus
    PW's Best 98 Books selection
    In his 14th adventure, Matthew Scudder, signs up to help his closest and most unlikely friend, the larger-than-life Hell's Kitchen hoodlum Mick Ballou - and soon finds himself living in a world where the past is a mine field, the present is a war zone, and the future's an open question.
    Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up
  • Armadillo
    Author: Boyd, William
    Publisher: Knopf List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0375402233 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    From the acclaimed author of Brazzaville Beach and The Blue Afternoon comes a new novel, set in present day London - and demonstrating the superbly plotted storytelling that has earned Boyd his reputation as a writer whose "eccentric wit and restless intelligence exert a powerful appeal" (New York Times Book Review).
  • Riding the Snake
    Author: Cannell, Stephen J.
    Publisher: Morrow List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0688158056 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    International intrigue, nuclear terrorism, and nonstop action are the components of this latest novel by Stephen J. Cannell, successful TV producer and author of King Con and Final Victim. A country club playboy and a beautiful black cop find themselves going up against the toughest triad in Hong Kong, after they follow the trial of a multi-billion dollar Chinese criminal conspiracy that reaches to the top of the U.S. government.
  • The Story Teller
    Author: Coel, Margaret
    Publisher: Prime Crime List Price: $ 21.95 ISBN: 0425165388 Date: 1998
    starBooklist
    The national bestselling author of The Dream Stalker and The Ghost Walker brings back Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden and confidante Father John O'Malley to reclaim a sacred treasure of the past.
    Suggested Reading: If You Like Tony Hillerman . . .
  • Jitterbug
    Author: Estleman, Loren D.
    Publisher: Forge List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312863608 Date: 1998
    starPWstarBooklist
    Wartime Detroit is dazzlingly recreated in Loren Estleman's latest tour de force crime novel. Great auto manufacturers labor mightily; blacks struggle for an economic toehold; whites strive for decent lives in the chaos. The climax, during America's nastiest race riots, is unforgettable.
  • Blind Date
    Author: Fyfield, Frances
    Publisher: Viking List Price: $ 21.95 ISBN: 0670878898 Date: 1998
    starLJ
    A complicated, prickly ex-police detective, recovering from a brutal attack of deadly acid, tracks her quarry through a London peopled the pathetic and the poisonous, as she heads for something more chilling than loneliness, more savage than self-doubt.
  • The Sensualist
    Author: Hodgson, Barbara
    Publisher: Chronicle List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 081881906x Date: 1998
    starKirkus
  • Mannequin
    Author: Janes, J. Robert
    Publisher: Soho List Price: $ 22 ISBN: 1569471290 Date: 1998
    starPW
    A tale of missing persons in Paris. Set in German-occupied France, 1942-43. The detectives are Jean-Louis St-Cyr, or the Surete Nationale, and Hermann Kohler of the Gestapo.
  • The Mercy Rule
    Author: Lescroart, John
    Publisher: Delacorte List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385316585 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    Dismas Hardy, the former bartender, loving husband and father, and reluctant defense attorney if Lescroart's blockbuster novel The 13th Juror, returns to face his most challenging case yet - defending a could-have-been-great baseball player indicted for the murder of his father.
    Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
  • A Breach of Promise
    Author: Perry, Anne
    Publisher: Fawcett List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0449908496 Date: 1998
    starBooklist
    The ninth novel of murder and detection in Victorian England featuring sleuth William Monk. As Monk and barrister Oliver Rathbone scour the city in search of clues to help the defendant in a sensational breach-of-promise suit, the case comes to a tragic end. An outcome that no one - except a ruthless murderer - could have foreseen.
  • Fire and Ice: A Liam Campbell Mystery
    Author: Stabenow, Dana
    Publisher: Dutton List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0525944389 Date: 1998
    starLJ
    After losing his family and his career, an Alaska State Trooper finds himself on a plane to his new posting - a small town far from Anchorage. And fate isn't finished with him yet. No sooner does he set foot off the plane than he is confronted with a dead body and the accusing glare of the only woman he'd ever truly loved... and lost.

November

  • Wycliffe and the Redhead
    Author: Burley, W.J.
    Publisher: St. Martins List Price: $ 20.95 ISBN: 0312193742 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
  • Crime of Silence
    Author: Carlon, Patricia
    Publisher: Soho List Price: $ 21 ISBN: 1569471312 Date: 1998
    starPWstarKirkus
    PW's Best 98 Books selection
    A brilliantly plotted mystery by one of Australia's best suspense writers, this chilling novel involves the kidnapping a child and the two men, who each for their own reasons, must rescue the child from his abductors. But something goes wrong, and a murder is committed.
    Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
  • The Northbury Papers
    Author: Dobson, Joanne
    Publisher: Doubleday List Price: $ 21.95 ISBN: 0385489636 Date: 1998
    starBooklist
    An ill wind blows through the groves of academia as English professor Karen Pelletier becomes embroiled in her second homicide investigation.
  • Hammer of Eden
    Author: Follett, Ken
    Publisher: Crown List Price: $ 25.95 ISBN: 0609603086 Date: 1998
    starBooklist
    This contemporary thriller takes readers to a new level of earth-shaking excitement with a tale of a breathtaking showdown between man, technology, and the power of the Earth. Against the clock, a crackerjack FBI agent and a maverick seismologist race to track down an enigmatic group of terrorists who threaten California with a man-made earthquake.
  • The Stargazey
    Author: Grimes, Martha
    Publisher: Henry Holt List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 080505622x Date: 1998
    starBooklist
    After following an intriguing woman he sees on the bus to the gates of Fulham Palace, Richard Jury wonders if the death that occurred inside the palace's walled gates could have been averted if he had gone in - and if this precipitated still another death in a London club. Before Jury can work out the connection between the two killings, he finds himself both helped and hindered by Grimes's usual band of eccentrics.
  • Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades
    Author: Hall, Oakley
    Publisher: California Academy of Sciences List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0520215559 Date: 1998
    starBookliststarKirkus
    In a fast-paced novel that is a combination of murder mystery, historical fiction, and quirky biography, Oakley Hall draws the reader into 1880's San Francisco and the changing world that was California in the latter part of the 19th century.
  • The Big Law
    Author: Logan, Chuck
    Publisher: Harpercollins List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 006019133 Date: 1998
    starPW
    In his most electrifying thriller to date, an emerging master of the thriller pits one man's smoldering sense of justice against the FBI's witness protection program when he tracks down a killer shielded by the unwitting Feds.
    Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up
  • Sore Loser: A Mickey Donovan Mystery
    Author: McAlary, Mike
    Publisher: Morrow List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 068815610x Date: 1998
    starPW
  • When the Wind Blows
    Author: Patterson, James
    Publisher: Little Brown List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0316693224 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    In his best book yet, Patterson offers the most brilliant and original "what if" suspense novel to come along in a decade. When a young veterinarian whose husband has recently been murdered comes across an astonishing discovery in the woods near her animal hospital, she soon finds herself in the company of an unconventional FBI agent.
    Suggested Reading: Bio Thrillers
  • Drinker of Blood
    Author: Robinson, Lynda S.
    Publisher: List Price: $ ISBN: Date: 1998
    starBooklist
    The highly celebrated Lord Meren mystery series featuring historical intrigue during the reign of Pharaoh Tutankhamen continues with the investigation of the murder of Queen Nefertiti.
    Suggested Reading: Egyptian Stars
  • y of an unconventional FBI agent.
  • Bluebottle: Lew Griffin Mystery
    Author: Sallis, James
    Publisher: Walker List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0802733239 Date: 1998
    starPW
    Lew Griffin's fifth outing begins when someone fires a shot towards him. When he fully comes to, Griffin discovers that most of a year has gone by since that night. Somewhere in the Crescent City there's an answer . . . and some very strange allies . . . if they can be trusted.
    Suggested Reading: New Orleans

December

  • Instruments of the Night
    Author: Cook, Thomas H.
    Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 055310554x Date: 1998
    starPWstarKirkus
    An acclaimed master of literary suspense delivers a tale of the raptures of violence and the recesses of fear, as he visits the heart of the darkest crime imaginable and, in doing so, uncovers profound truths about the power of forgiveness and the ruthlessness of love.
  • Dead in the Water: Daisy Dalyrmple
    Author: Dunn, Carola
    Publisher: St. Martins List Price: $ 21.95 ISBN: 0312191812 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    In July 1923, the Honorable Daisy Dalyrmple travels to Henley-on-Thames to visit her aunt and uncle, watch the annual intercollegiate rowing races, and spend a quiet weekend with her fianc,, Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard. But things go awry when a murder occurs on her cousin's team and Daisy is again in the middle.
  • Ghost Walk
    Author: Macdonald, Marianne
    Publisher: Dunne List Price: $ 21.95 ISBN: 031219417x Date: 1998
    starKirkus
  • The Balloon Man
    Author: MacLeod, Charlotte
    Publisher: Mysterious List Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0892966572 Date: 1998
    starPW
    A family wedding gone awry sets the pace in this deliciously deadly Sarah Kelling/Max Bittersohn mystery from multiple-award-winning author Charlotte MacLeod.
  • Home Fires Burning
    Author: Maron, Margaret
    Publisher: Mysterious List Price: $ 22 ISBN: 089296656 Date: 1998
    starPW
    PW's Best 98 Books selection
    North Carolina judge Deborah Knott engages in her own investigation of an arsonist in the midst of her campaigning for reelection in this sixth installment of this award-winning series.
    Suggested Reading: On Fire
  • Wildcrafters
    Author: Moody, Skye Kathleen
    Publisher: St Martins List Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312193645 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
  • Hoare and the Portsmouth Atrocities
    Author: Perkins, Wilder
    Publisher: Dunne List Price: $ 21.95 ISBN: 0312192835 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
  • The Caverel Claim
    Author: Rawlinson, Peter
    Publisher: Dunne List Price: $ 21.95 ISBN: 0312193432 Date: 1998
    starKirkus
    Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
  • Smoker
    Author: Rucka, Greg
    Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 055310716x Date: 1998
    starPW
    It's the kiss of death for a professional bodyguard to be known as a man who attracts danger. But that's what has happened to Atticus Kodiak. Now there's only one person who'll touch Kodiak with a ten-foot pole, and the job he wants him to do, Kodiak normally wouldn't touch with a pole twice that long!