Overbooked: Starred Review Lists

 

Crime Fiction Stars of 1999

Page Modified: June 25, 2009

Seeing Stars

Lists of (mostly) hardcover books which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist , Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus and Library Journal (LJ).

The review journal assigns the star.

Stars of 1999: January - June

Titles are listed by approximate date of publication, then by alphabetically by author.

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine - unless otherwise noted.

A indicates an Overbooked Jump for Joy book.

June

• River of Darkness
  Author: Airth, Rennie
  Publisher: Viking Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0670885959 Date: 1999
  KirkusPW
  A powerful debut novel set in rural England just after World War I. Sent by Scotland Yard to investigate a murderous attack in a small Surrey village, Inspector John Madden sets out to identify and capture the killer--a demented former soldier with a bloody past.
  Suggested Reading: Psycho Killers | Serial Killers | Debuts | Psychological Suspense Stars
• The Burglar in the Rye
  Author: Block, Lawrence
  Publisher: Dutton Price: $ 23.95 ISBN:0525945008 Date: 1999
  PWKirkus
  Fifty books. Four Edgar awards. Two bestselling series. It all adds up to Lawrence Block, one of the bonafide masters of mystery fiction, and the creator of Matthew Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr. Now Bernie -- bookseller by day, burglar by night -- returns in his first adventure since The Burglar in the Library, two years ago. This time, he's tapped to retrieve the lost letters of famed and reclusive author Gulliver Fairborn. But instead of the letters, Bernie finds one dead literary agent, a beautiful woman, and a cadre of cops in his way. - Publisher's marketing.
• Tripwire
  Author: Child, Lee
  Publisher: Putnam Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399144676 Date: 1999
  PW
  
• The Serpent Club
  Author: Coffey, Tom
  Publisher: Pocket Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0671028278 Date: 1999
  PW
  Reporter Ted Lowe's life and career begins to unravel when he covers the murder of 13-year-old Megan Wright and implicates the handsome teenage son of one of California's most powerful men.
• Some Deaths Before Dying
  Author: Dickenson, Peter
  Publisher: Mysterious Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0892966963 Date: 1999
  PWKirkus
  From the author of Skeleton-in-Waiting and The Yellow Room Conspiracy. On her deathbed, an old woman rakes through the years of her life to attempt to learn the truth about a precious possession - one with a dangerous history - so she can die in the manner she has chosen.
• Boy in the Water
  Author: Dobyns, Stephen
  Publisher: Holt Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0805060200 Date: 1999
  KirkusBooklist
  With his customary uncanny awareness of the intricacies of human nature, the acclaimed author of The Church of Dead Girls once again probes the daily life of an ordinary community to reveal the depths of good and evil.
  Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
• Resurrection Day
  Author: Dubois, Brendon
  Publisher: Putnam Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399144986 Date: 1999
  BooklistPWLibrary Journal
  A chilling tale of intrigue and betrayal in the aftermath of an American nuclear war. Boston, 1972: Ten years after nuclear bombs decimate parts of the U.S. and Russia, a young reporter makes some startling connections about the events that led up to the war.
  Suggested Reading: Alternative History Stars | All Stars
• Lie in the Dark
  Author: Fesperman, Dan
  Publisher: Soho Price: $ 24 ISBN: 1569471533 Date: 1999
  BooklistPW
  In a thriller that recalls the first excitement of Martin Cruz Smith's Moscow, the author Dan Fesperman brilliantly renders the fragmented society and underworld of Sarajevo at war - the freelancing gangsters, guilty bystanders, drop-in correspondents, the bureaucrats frightened for their jobs and for their very lives - and weaves through this torn cityscape on man's desperate, deadly pursuit of the wrong people in the wrongest place. (Soho publicity)
  Suggested Reading: European Crime Fiction | Former Yugoslavia
• Lovely Mover
  Author: James, Bill
  Publisher: Norton Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0393047636 Date: 1999
  PW
  Chief Inspector Colin Harpur find himself playing a precarious undercover game that involves both covering up a murder and investigating it. Only one person suspects what Harpur is up to--his sneering superior, ACC Desmond Iles.
• Don't Think Twice
  Author: Johnson, Wayne
  Publisher: Harmony Price: $ 23 ISBN: 060904600 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  A Chippewa man fights to save his resort lodge, his marriage, and his own skin in the face of the exploitation and betrayal that are woven into his tribal history.
• The Thief of Venice: Homer Kelly
  Author: Langton, Jane
  Publisher: Viking Price: $ 21.95 ISBN: 0670882100 Date: 1999
  PW
  In his 14th mystery, Homer Kelly is lured to Venice by the seductive call of a rare books conference. While Homer basks in the Biblioteca Marciana, his wife Mary stumbles on a case that leads to a bonafide miracle and the discovery of a treasure.
• Prayers For Rain
  Author: Lehane, Dennis
  Publisher: Morrow Price: $ 25 ISBN: 068815333x Date: 1999
  PWKirkus
  Boston private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro's relationship has hit the skids. Despite their problems, however, the pair is reunited to close down a predator whose method of killing seems to put him beyond the law: he drives his victims to commit suicide.
  Suggested Reading: Psycho Killers | Private Investigators
• Sidetracked: Kurt Wallender
  Author: Mankell, Henning
  Publisher: New Press Price: $ 25 ISBN: 1565845072 Date: 1999
  PW
  Suggested Reading: European Mysteries
  
• Hermit's Peak
  Author: McGarrity, Michael
  Publisher: Scribner Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0684850788 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  The fourth installment of the Kevin Kerney series. As Kerney explores his windfall inheritance of prime ranch land, an abandoned dog appears carrying a discarded shoe and leads the chief deputy to the bones of an unidentified woman.
• Falcon at the Portal: Amelia Peabody
  Author: Peters, Elizabeth
  Publisher: Twilight Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0380976587 Date: 1999
  PW
  1911: Amelia Peabody and her family arrive in Egypt for their annual excavation and for the wedding of Ramses' best friend David to Amelia's niece. However, when David is accused of selling ancient Egyptian artifacts that are really high-priced, almost undetectable fakes, Amelia must endeavor to clear his name.
  Suggested Reading: Egyptian Stars
• Death Du Jour
  Author: Reichs, Kathleen J.
  Publisher: Scribner Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0684841185 Date: 1999
  PWBooklist
  Using her forensic skills - from the crime scene to the morgue to the lab - Tempe Brennan probes a mystery that begins with horrifying deaths in a fire in Quebec and culminates in Montreal with a terrifying showdown.
  Suggested Reading: Crime Scene Investigations | On Fire
• Dead Ground
  Author: Seymour, Gerald
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0684854767 Date: 1999
  PW
  Tracy Barnes seeks revenge against the secret police who murdered her lover some 15 years before. But in East Germany, a country still at war with itself, she finds herself played as a pawn in a far bigger game of revenge that reaches all the way to Moscow.
• Havana Bay
  Author: Smith, Martin Cruz
  Publisher: Random Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0679426620 Date: 1999
  KirkusBooklistPW
  Bestselling author Martin Cruz Smith has found a way to exploit the last cutting edge of the Cold War. When the body of a Russian embassy official is found floating in Havana Bay, Arkady Renko, the memorable detective from Gorky Park is sent to identify it.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
• Cold Truth
  Author: Stone, Jonathan
  Publisher: St Martins Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312199422 Date: 1999
  KirkusPW
  When Julian Palmer leaves the dirty sludge of Manhattan for a police internship in northern New York State, she finds that the small town's shimmering blankets of snow hide shocking secrets--and a killer with the coldest heart.

May

• The Feast of Stephen: An Ellis Portal Mystery
  Author: Aubert, Rosemary
  Publisher: Bridge Works Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 1882593278 Date: 1999
  BooklistPW
  Ellis Portal, the disgraced former judge, returns to investigate several pre-Christmas deaths in Toronto, seemingly from exposure to the cold, in which all the victims turn out to be courtroom habitues with verses from the Bible in their possession.
• Death of an Addict
  Author: Beaton, M. C.
  Publisher: Mysterious Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0892966750 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  Constable Hamish Macbeth, the beloved Scottish detective, is now faced with a mysterious murder and undercover drug operation in Amsterdam.
  Suggested Reading: Scottish Crime Fiction
• Wrack
  Author: Bradley, James
  Publisher: Henry Holt Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0805061088 Date: 1999
  PW
  David Norfolk, an archeologist searching for a Portugese ship, long rumored to be buried benight the sand dunes of Southern Australia, unearths instead the body of a man murdered 50 years ago.
• Prayer of the Bone
  Author: Bryers, Paul
  Publisher: Bloomsbury Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 1582340226 Date: 1999
  PW
  When a young woman arrives in Maine to collect the remains of her sister, who was supposedly mauled to death by a bear, she encounters a police investigation that is not only tracking bears and picking over 300-year-old settler's bones, but is finding its way through tribal conditions and shape-shifting humans.
  Suggested Reading: Woo Woo Stars
• Every Dead Thing
  Author: Connolly, John
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0684857146 Date: 1999
  PW
  Haunted by the unsolved slayings of his wife and daughter, former New York City Detective Charlie Parker is a man consumed by guilt, regret, and the desire for revenge. When his search for a missing woman leads him to the man who has destroyed his family, Parker knows payback time has come at last.
• Hard Evidence
  Author: D'Amato, Barbara
  Publisher: Scribner Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0684833549 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  Chicago journalist Cat Marsala's stint as a gourmet caterer leads her from penthouse to funeral home on a dangerous search for a killer in the eighth novel of this gritty series by an award-winning author.
• Death in Lacquer Red: A Hilda Johanson
  Author: Dams, Jeanne M.
  Publisher: Walker Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0802733298 Date: 1999
  Library Journal
  Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world at the turn of the last century, a young Swedish immigrant's struggle to be a good servant is compounded when she discovers the dead body of a young woman on the estate where she works.
• Hadrian's Walls
  Author: Draper, Robert
  Publisher: Scribner Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0375403698 Date: 1999
  BooklistPW
  In a surprising debut novel, the lifelong friendship between a prison's director and a notorious convict creates a conflict between obligation and loyalty.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
• Merchant's House
  Author: Ellis, Kate
  Publisher: St Martins Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312205627 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  A marvelous British procedural featuring a detective and amateur archeologist Wesley Peterson, a man whose unusual talents will be needed to solve two brutal murders - one of them over 400 years old.
  Suggested Reading: Archaeology
• City of Ice
  Author: Farrow, John
  Publisher: Random Price: $ 25.95 ISBN: 0375501401 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  Reminiscent of Smilla's Sense of Snow, this gripping debut thriller, set in the bone-chilling midwinter Montreal, features an unorthodox detective pitted against the Russian mafia, CIA infiltrators, motorcycle gangs, and a corrupt police force.
  Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up
• Heartbreaker
  Author: Ferrigno, Robert
  Publisher: Random House Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0375401245 Date: 1999
  PW
  The author of The Horse Lattitudes presents a full-throttle, caustically funny, noir thriller. A former undercover cop flees Miami for Hollywood, running from a ruthless drug kingpin, and winds up putting both himself - and his new love - in great danger.
• Mariner's Compass: A Benni Harper Mystery
  Author: Fowler, Earlene
  Publisher: Prime Crime Price: $ 21.95 ISBN: 0425168913 Date: 1999
  PW
  When Jacob Chandler dies, he leaves his home in Morro Bay to Benni Harper - the only stipulation is that she must stay in the house for two weeks alone to discover whether he is her guardian angel or personal demon, she must follow the scavenger hunt clues he has set up for her throughout his home.
• Last Rites
  Author: Harvey, John
  Publisher: Henry Holt Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0805041508 Date: 1999
  BooklistPWKirkus
  When a convicted murderer out on compassionate leave turns up at his mother's funeral and then abruptly disappears, the local cops don't have much time to spare for a manhunt. This is Resnick's final case - and it's Resnick at his finest.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
• Potomac Fever
  Author: Horrock, Harry
  Publisher: Little Brown Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0316354724 Date: 1999
  PW
  A high-powered thriller set in Washington, D.C., features a pair of cops in a fiendishly clever plot that involves everything from kinky sex to shady real estate development.
  Suggested Reading: Political Fiction
• White Sky, Black Ice
  Author: Jones, Stan
  Publisher: Soho Price: $ 1569471525 ISBN: Date: 1999
  Library Journal
  Trooper Nathan Active, child of a fifteen-year-old unmarried Inupiat Eskimo girl, was given up for adoption and raised in Anchorage where he graduated from the university. Now that he has been posted to he remote birth village, Chukchi, he longs to return to civilization. Before that happens, he is confronted by atypical suicides. Eskimo's are notoriously at risk for self- slaughter, but never has one man after another shot himself in the Adam's apple. Can a shaman's curse really be at work? (Soho publicity)
• The Fencing Master
  Author: Perez-Reverte, Arturo
  Publisher: Harcourt Brace Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0151001812 Date: 1999
  PWKirkus
  Madrid, 1868: Don Jaime, a fencing master and man of honor, is approached by a beautiful and mysterious woman who asks him to teach her the secret of the unstoppable thrust. Soon the Maestro is involved in a plot that includes seduction, politics, secret documents - and murder.
• Rubicon
  Author: Saylor, Steven
  Publisher: St Martins Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312205767 Date: 1999
  PW
  From the critically acclaimed, bestselling novelist Steven Saylor, comes a story of murder and duplicity during the Roman Civil War.
• Hunter's Moon
  Author: Stabenow, Dana
  Publisher: Putnam Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399144684 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  A corporate hunting retreat turns into a deadly game of cat and mouse in the ninth mystery starring Alaskan P.I. Kate Shugak.
  Suggested Reading: Private Investigators
  
• Cryptonomicon
  Author: Stephenson, Neal
  Publisher: Avon Price: $ 29.50 ISBN: 0380973464 Date: 1999
  PWLibrary Journal
  The adult grandchildren of two men once involved in code-breaking espionage in World War II find a sunken Nazi submarine that leads to a massive conspiracy, which can either enhance freedom - or subjugate the world.
• Act of Revenge
  Author: Tanenbaum, Robert K
  Publisher: Harpercollins Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0060192186 Date: 1999
  PW
  "The most interesting pair of characters in the suspense genre" ("Chicago Tribune") comes to HarperCollins for the first time. When their daughter witnesses a tong murder in Chinatown, Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi find themselves entangled in a 20-year-old--but still very poisonous--Mafia conspiracy.
  Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up
• The Breaker
  Author: Walters, Minette
  Publisher: Putnam Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399144927 Date: 1999
  BooklistPWKirkus
  The acclaimed author of The Echo spins a hypnotic tale of mystery and intrigue. After a woman is brutally raped and murdered - events to which her mute three-year-old daughter was a witness - the police turn their investigation on the victim's husband.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Psychological Suspense Stars
• Soft Money: A Filomena Buscarsela Mystery
  Author: Wishnia, K.J.A.
  Publisher: Dutton Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525945016 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  The heroine of 23 Shades of Black, Latina Filomena Buscarsela, has left the NYPD for less dangerous work. But she finds herself being drawn back into the fray when a rookie cop needs her help solving a bodega murder in the Bronx.

April

• The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori
  Author: Barnard, Robert
  Publisher: Scribner Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0684855321 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  When the body of a partially naked young man is found in a car parked behind one of Haworth's many eating establishments, the town becomes recognized for something much more sinister.
• Man of the Hour
  Author: Blauner, Peter
  Publisher: Little Brown Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0361038172 Date: 1999
  PW
  A finely crafted suspense novel about heroism in everyday life, Man of the Hour is about a Brooklyn high school teacher who becomes famous for saving his students from a bomb. But when he becomes a suspect in the case, his life is turned upside down - and finding the real bomber appears to be his only way out.
• Long Son
  Author: Bowen, Peter
  Publisher: St Martins Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312199171 Date: 1999
  PW
  In Toussaint, Montana, old family secrets, forgotten for more than 100 years, come to light after a young woman and her land-owning parents die under suspicious circumstances. Gabriel Du Pre discovers a string of unexplained deaths buried deep in the family's past. (St. Martin's marketing)
• Blood Mud
  Author: Constantine, K.C.
  Publisher: Mysterious Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0892966475 Date: 1999
  PWKirkusBooklist
  Mario Balzic returns for another ride through the fiercely authentic American language and landscape that is the hallmark of this acclaimed series from the author of Brushback.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
• Kissed a Sad Goodbye
  Author: Crombie, Deborah
  Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 055310943x Date: 1999
  PWKirkus
  Crombie weaves a tale of two boys who become allies, then friends, into a story of trust and betrayal whose repercussions echo across six decades.
• Three Hands in the Fountain
  Author: Davis, Lindsey
  Publisher: Mysterious Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0892966912 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  First century sleuth Marcus Didius Falco confronts ancient Rome's most dangerous serial killer in the latest entry in the author's international bestselling, award-wining series.
• Red Gold
  Author: Furst, Alan
  Publisher: Random Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0679451862 Date: 1999
  Library JournalPWBooklistKirkus
  Within the fragmented French resistance, an intelligence officer decides to strike a deal with the devil in this rich and suspenseful part thriller, part love story spy novel.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Espionage
• Caught in the Light
  Author: Goddard, Robert
  Publisher: Henry Holt Price: $ 26 ISBN: 080506155x Date: 1999
  Booklist
  Photographer Ian Jarrett sets out to solve a mystery that may be 170 years old. At the end of his search, a trap awaits him.
  Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
• Ashes to Ashes
  Author: Hoag, Tami
  Publisher: Bantam Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0553106333 Date: 1999
  PW
  Hoag has "set a standard in suspense" (Atlanta Journal) with five bestsellers in just 20 months. Now she delivers her most gripping page-turner yet, as a city is stalked by a predator born with a taste for murder.
• Hart's War
  Author: Katzenbach, John
  Publisher: Ballantine Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 034542624x Date: 1999
  PW
  A breathtaking novel of murder and justice in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp, from the bestselling author of Just Cause. When a Tuskegee airman arrives at the camp, 2nd Lt. Tommy Hart is tapped to defend him in a murder trial rife with racial tension and raw conflict. The lines between ally and enemy blur and Hart soon realizes that nothing is what it seems.
  Suggested Reading: Legal Stars | World Wars
• Harmful Intent
  Author: Kerr, Baine
  Publisher: Scribner Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0684854139 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  A doctor's inexplicable failure to diagnose breast cancer - every woman's worst nightmare - propels this riveting medical malpractice, legal thriller. With a fine sense of drama and an intimate knowledge of how the legal system really works in the face of power and politics, Blaine Kerr portrays a lone man's fight for justice and the surprising developments that his case takes.
  Suggested Reading: Legal Stars | Medical Thrillers
• Sabbathday River
  Author: Korelitz, Jean Hanff
  Publisher: Farrar Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0374253234 Date: 1999
  BooklistPW
  One warm September morning in 1985, Naomi Roth finds the drowned body of a newborn baby girl floating in the Sabbathday River. The community rapidly fingers Heather Pratt, a young single mother, as the prime suspect. But when the body of a second infant is found, Heather is charged with both deaths. In this new work, Korelitz, also author of A Jury of Her Peers, has written a powerful, hypnotically readable novel about life in a small town.
• The Flower Master
  Author: Massey, Sujata
  Publisher: Harper Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0060192283 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  Rei Shimura is a half-American, half-Japanese antiques dealer who's all sleuth when it comes to crime. At her aunt's bidding, Rei signs up for a course in Japanese flower arranging, but before she's even finished her first lesson, one of her teachers is brutally murdered.
• Mosaic
  Author: Maxim, John R.
  Publisher: Avon Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0380975440 Date: 1999
  PW
  Susannah Card is a natural "mosiac" - a woman who with control over her multiple personalities. But now she's being sucked into a government experiment that is suddenly going brutally, horribly, wrong.
  Suggested Reading: Medical Thrillers
• Garnet Hill
  Author: Mina, Denise
  Publisher: Carroll and Graf Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0786706120 Date: 1999
  PWKirkus
  Mina's taut crime novel plunges into the dark side of Glasgow's grimmest neighborhood, Garnethill, with a heroine who may be emotionally battered but who is no victim.
  Suggested Reading: Scottish Crime Fiction
• The Blue Hour
  Author: Parker, T. Jefferson
  Publisher: Hyperion Price: $ 23.95 ISBN:078682882 Date: 1999
  PW
  The "ace suspense writer" (Chicago Tribune) returns with an explosive new thriller that pits an unlikely team of detectives - who become an even more unlikely pair of lovers - against a ruthless serial killer.
• Bedford Square
  Author: Perry, Anne
  Publisher: Storey Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0345432983 Date: 1999
  BooklistPW
  In Perry's 21st novel of scandal and suspense in Victorian England, the detective duo of Thomas and Charlotte Pitt investigates the death of a shabbily dressed man, whose bloody body is found on the doorstep of General Brandon Ballantyne. They must tread lightly, however, lest their investigation triggers a tragedy of immense proportions, ensnaring honorable men like flies in a web of terror.
• Waiting
  Author: Robinson, Frank M.
  Publisher: Forge Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312866526 Date: 1999
  PW
  They are among us, and they've been here for a long time - waiting. One ordinary man in San Francisco, Arthur Banks, begins to find them out, and immediately his life and family are in danger. It's a paranoid's worst nightmare - but that's just where it starts. He may well be fighting for the survival of the entire human race.
  Suggested Reading: Woo Woo Stars
  
• In a Dry Season
  Author: Robinson, Peter
  Publisher: Twilight Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0380975815 Date: 1999
  PWKirkusBooklist
  A playful child wandering in remains unearths a human skeleton that forensics determine to belong to a woman who appears to have been murdered and hidden beneath the floor of an old building.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
• Second Hand Smoke
  Author: Rosenbaum, Thane
  Publisher: St Martins Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312199546 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  In the seamy world of Miami, Mila Katz lives by the wits with which she survived the Holocaust - and her son, who grew up under his mother's psychotic tutelage to become a lawyer and Nazi hunter, finds that at every turn he is the heir to the rage and trauma of her past.
• Mistaken Identity
  Author: Scottoline, Lisa
  Publisher: HarperCollins Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0060187476 Date: 1999
  PWKirkusLibrary Journal
  An accused murderer is a dead ringer for the attorney hired to protect her - claiming to be her long-lost twin sister. From that startling opening, Mistaken Identity sweeps up readers on a roller coaster rider of breathless suspense, the kind only bestselling author Lisa Scottoline can deliver.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Legal Stars
• God Is a Bullet
  Author: Teran, Boston
  Publisher: Knopf Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0375401881 Date: 1999
  PW
  Revolving around a bloodthirsty devil-worshiping "tribe" called The Left-Handed Path", this thriller considers what it means to surrender oneself completely - to drugs, or power, or faith, or love.
• Chocolate Lizards
  Author: Thompson, Cole
  Publisher: St Martins Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312200528 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  Merle Luskey, a tough talkin' wildcatter, has a proposition for his new friend - he needs a "rat killer", someone smart enough to help him outwit the bank, the sheriff, and a rival drilling company in a frantic race to hit paydirt before the foreclosure goes through.

March

• Broken Lines
  Author: Bannister, Jo
  Publisher: St Martins Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0312198426 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  After witnessing a terrible accident, Detective Sergeant Donovan is under suspicion for attempted murder - and Bannister's compelling trio of police officers must race against time to find the true criminal.
• Revenge of Kali-Ra
  Author: Beck, K.K.
  Publisher: Mysterious Price: $ 22 ISBN: 089296670x Date: 1999 1999
  PW
  With screen star Nadia Wentworth decides to play the bewitching Kali-Ra, the Queen of Doom, the result is homicide in this deftly comic murder mystery that's chock full of eccentric characters and Hollywood hysteria.
  Suggested Reading: Hollywood & Film Stars
• Liberty Falling
  Author: Barr, Nevada
  Publisher: Putnam Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399144595 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  A new adventure featuring park ranger Anna Pigeon. While visiting her ill sister in New York, Anna bunks with some friends on Liberty Island, and is soon plunged into an investigation, after a young girl falls - or is pushed - to her death while exploring the Statue of Liberty.
• Fountain of Sorrow
  Author: Charles, Paul
  Publisher: Do-Not Press (Dufour) Price: $ 31 ISBN: 1899344381 Date: 1999
  PW
  Third in the increasingly popular Detective Inspector Christy Kennedy mystery series . . .
• Shattered Shell
  Author: Dubois, Brendan
  Publisher: St Martins Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312193327 Date: 1999
  PW
  Lewis Cole -- a man with a mysterious past and a thirst for justice -- encounters deadly dangers along the New Hampshire seacoast in winter.
• The Rich and the Profane: Lovejoy
  Author: Gash, Jonathan
  Publisher: Viking Price: $ 21.95 ISBN: 0670883468 Date: 1999
  BooklistPW
  The 20th mystery of this series finds Lovejoy Antiques, Inc., in a spot of bailiff trouble and the rascally sleuth himself embroiled in a riot of holy hanky-panky, antique dealing, and a devilish murder.
  Suggested Reading: Antique Mysteries
• Testament
  Author: Grisham, John
  Publisher: Doubleday Price: $ 27.95 ISBN: 0385493800 Date: 1999
  PW
  An eccentric, reclusive billionaire looking for a way to die, a burnt-out Washington litigator just out of rehab for the fourth time; a woman who left the modern world to live and work in the jungles of Brazil. In a remarkable mix of legal suspense and high adventure, they are all brought together by the startling secret of The Testament.
  Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
• Mrs. Million
  Author: Hautman, Pete
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0684832437 Date: 1999
  KirkusLibrary Journal
  A female lottery winner in a small Midwestern town offers a monetary prize to whomever can tell her the mysterious whereabouts of her husband who has gone into hiding.
• Single and Single
  Author: Le Carre, John
  Publisher: Scribner Price: $ 26 ISBN: 0684859262 Date: 1999
  BooklistKirkus
  The bestselling author of A Perfect Spy epitomizes and transcends the spy novel genre to present a story of corrupt liaisons between criminal elements in the new Russian states and the world of legitimate finance in Europe.
  Suggested Reading: Financial Thrillers
• Be Cool
  Author: Leonard, Elmore
  Publisher: Delacorte Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385333919 Date: 1999
  BooklistPW
  With his unique combination of the good, the bad, and the unexpected, the bestselling author of Get Shorty gives readers a new Chili Palmer novel that twists and turns to the very end. From screen tests to jam sessions, from the Hills and the Valley to Hollywood and Vine, Be Cool is all new, all clever, and most definitely, all that.
• Mary, Mary
  Author: Parsons, Julie
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0684853248 Date: 1999
  PW
  Already a tremendous triumph in England; a spine tingling thriller about a brilliant and professional woman - a psychologist - who seeks revenge on the sadistic killer who tortured and murdered her teenage daughter.
• Taking Lives
  Author: Pye, Michael
  Publisher: Knopf Price: $ 23 ISBN:0375402608 Date: 1999
  KirkusBooklist
  A chilling hit-and-kill scene begins this riveting psychological novel about a young serial killer who takes on the identities of his victims.
  Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
• Sight for Sore Eyes
  Author: Rendell, Ruth
  Publisher: Crown Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0609604171 Date: 1999
  BooklistPW
  A child witnesses the murder of her mother; a fading beauty seeks to alleviate the boredom of her marriage to a wealthy, older man; a boy discovers that killing is an easy way to get what he wants. When the lives of these three people converge, the effect is surprising, harrowing, and unforgettable.
  Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
• The Crook Factory
  Author: Simmons, Dan
  Publisher: Avon Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0380973685 Date: 1999
  BooklistKirkus
  For readers who loved The Alienist and Los Alamos, this stunning novel of historical suspense imagines Ernest Hemingway as a spy in Cuba in 1942.
  Suggested Reading: Cuba

February

• East of A
  Author: Atwood, Russ
  Publisher: Ballantine Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0345427769 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  This neo-noir urban thriller takes a walk on the wild side of New York's East Village - and introduces Payton Sherwood, a private detective who stumbles onto murder.
• The Broken Hearts Club
  Author: Black, Ethan
  Publisher: Ballantine Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0345426029 Date: 1999
  PW
  The Broken Hearts Club, meeting regularly at Mackey's Steak and Ale Tavern, consists of a group of men with one thing in common: the sting of a broken heart. But for one of them, the rejection has turned to rage . . . and murderous violence.
• Coq Au Vin
  Author: Carter, Charlotte
  Publisher: Mysterious Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0892966785 Date: 1999
  PWBooklist
  A poetry-spouting jazz-playing, French-speaking Black American Princess searches for her missing aunt in this sexy and hilarious mystery set in Paris, France.
  Suggested Reading: African American Stars
• Vector
  Author: Cook, Robin
  Publisher: Putnam Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399144714 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  When Dr. Jack Stapleton and Dr. Laurie Montgomery (both last seen in Cook's Chromosome 6) witness some unusual cases in their capacities as New York City forensic pathologists, the question soon becomes whether the pair will solve the puzzle before a terrorist unleashes ultimate terror in the form of a modern bioweapon.
  Suggested Reading: Crime Scene Investigations | Biological Thrillers
  
• Devil to Pay
  Author: Dold, Gaylord
  Publisher: St Martins Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312192576 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  In the tradition of Scott Turow's blockbuster Presumed Innocent comes a riveting psychological legal thriller with a twist - written by the author of the acclaimed crime novel, Schedule Two.
  Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
• Loot
  Author: Elkins, Aaron
  Publisher: William Morrow Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0688159273 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  April 1945: The Nazis, nearing defeat, frantically work to hide a huge store of looted art treasures. Fifty years later, in a seedy Boston pawnshop, ex-curater Ben Revere makes a stunning discovery among the piles of junk. But with the find come decades of secrets, rancor and lies.
  Suggested Reading: Nazi Plunder
• The Tesseract
  Author: Garland, Alex
  Publisher: Riverhead Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 1573221090 Date: 1999
  Library Journal
  Set in the Philippines, this Chinese puzzle of a novel, written by the author of The Beach, spans three generations, following the stories of three sets of characters whose fates are intertwined.
  Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
• Strawberry Sunday: John Marshall Tanner
  Author: Greenleaf, Stephen
  Publisher: Scribner Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0684849542 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  San Francisco P.I. John Marshall Tanner is back and heading for serious trouble as a young woman's murder pulls him into the dangerous and devious world of migrant farm work.
  Suggested Reading: Private Investigators
• Archangel
  Author: Harris, Robert
  Publisher: Random House Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0679428887 Date: 1999
  PWKirkus
  From the author of the bestselling Fatherland and Enigma comes the dramatic - and deadly - story of a chase through present-day Russia for the stunning secret Stalin tried to take to his grave.
• 8.4
  Author: Hernon, Peter
  Publisher: Putnam Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0399144005 Date: 1999
  PW
  Ground-shaking thrills in the tradition of Michael Crichton. A man and woman, both seismologists, find themselves in a race against the clock to convince the world that their daring mission is the only way to stop the last monstrous earthquake to come.
  Suggested Reading: If You Like Michael Crichton . . .
• Blood Money
  Author: Krich, Rochelle Majer
  Publisher: Twilight Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0380973790 Date: 1999
  PW
  Driven by the recently acquired knowledge that she is descended from victims of the Nazis, LAPD homicide detective Jessica Drake unravels a twisted plot that leads her to mysterious deaths among Holocaust survivors.
  Suggested Reading: Nazi Plunder
• Windfall
  Author: Magnuson, James
  Publisher: Villard Price: $ ? ISBN: 0375502106 Date: 1999
  PW
  Striving to support a family of four on an academic's salary, Ben Linberg, a middle-aged college professor, must face a life-changing moral decision.
• Where to Choose
  Author: Mickelbury, Penny
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster Price: $22 ISBN: 0684837420 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  One year after her husband was murdered, Carol Ann Gibson still hasn't put her life together. When she investigates problems in the racially mixed neighborhood of her childhood, she soon becomes a target herself.
  Suggested Reading: African American Stars

January

• Murder With Peacocks
  Author: Andrews, Donna
  Publisher: St Martins Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312199295 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  Hectic plans for three family weddings in one summer are made even more hectic by murder. New author Donna Andrews combines murder and madcap hilarity with a cast of eccentric oddballs in a small southern town.
  Suggested Reading: Humorous Mysteries | Debuts
• Sins of the Fathers
  Author: Blackthorn, John
  Publisher: William Morrow Price: $ 25 ISBN: 068816191x Date: 1999
  PW
  As time ticks inexorably toward January 1999, an American historian finds himself caught in a race against the clock, between the Cold War past he's studying - and an unthinkable future of atomic devastation.
• Citizen Sidel
  Author: Charyn, Jerome
  Publisher: Mysterious Price: $ 23 ISBN: 089296605x Date: 1999
  PW
  Mayor Isaac Sidel is the Democrat's darling, the front-runner for the vice-presidential nomination. His running mate's checkered past includes baseball czardom and student radicalism at Columbia that is now causing some concern. But Sidel has his own worries as two police captains are at each other's throats, a supposedly dead cop may be prowling the Lower East Side, the ex-mayor is in the madhouse, and the Latin Jokers gang is shooting people on the street. For Isaac Sidel, the road to Pennsylvania Avenue is exceedingly treacherous. ACT note: A follow-up to El Bronx.
• Thirteenth Night: A Medieval Mystery
  Author: Gordon, Alan
  Publisher: St Martins Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0312200358 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  In the 13th -century Europe, a secret organization - The Fool's Guild - existed to influence events behind the scene, and one such manipulation was recorded by Shakespeare, in altered form, in his play Twelfth Night. But now, may years later, the Duke of Orsino is murdered. Feste, a jester with the Fool's Guild, must return to once again match wits with his advserary Malvolio - agent of Saladin and sworn enemy of the Guild.
  Suggested Reading: Shakespearean Stars
• Cases
  Author: Gores, Joe
  Publisher: Mysterious Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0892965932 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  A young man just out of Notre Dame sets off for the roads and rails of postwar America, driven by Hemingway's belief that "going where you have to go, doing what you have to do, seeing what you have to see" is what makes one a writer.
• Perils of the Night
  Author: Hall, Linda
  Publisher: St Martins Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0312199961 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  The newest Yorkshire mystery starring reporter Laura Ackroyd and her sometimes lover, Chief Inspector Michael Thackery. When Laura goes undercover to writer about prostitution, Michael is soon after called to the scene of a prostitute's brutal stabbing.
• Misery Loves Maggody
  Author: Hess, Joan
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0684845628 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  Off-beat sleuth Arly Hanks returns in this newest installment of the Maggody series. On a trip to Memphis with a stop in a bustling Mississippi riverboat casino town, Arly's mother is admitted to the hospital. Arly rushes to her side and is drawn into a murder mystery.
  Suggested Reading: Humorous Mysteries
• The Agent
  Author: Higgins, George V.
  Publisher: Harcourt Brace Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0151003572 Date: 1999
  PW
  Alexander Drouhin built one of the nation's premier sports agencies through gritty negotiations and savvy marketing, When Drouhin is found murdered, the suspects abound. But, by the time Detective Lieutenant Inspector Francis Clay arrives on the scene, everyone seems to have an alibi.
• Four Corners of Night
  Author: Holden, Craig
  Publisher: Delacorte Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0385316529 Date: 1999
  PW
  At once a suspenseful search for the truth in a teenage girl's abduction as well as a multi-layered rumination on family, love and friendship, Four Corners of the Night explores bold new terrain in literary suspense fiction.
• Top Banana
  Author: James, Bill
  Publisher: W.W. Norton Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0393047180 Date: 1999
  PWBooklistKirkus
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  
• Billy Straight
  Author: Kellerman, Jonathan
  Publisher: Random House Price: $ 25.95 ISBN: 0679459596 Date: 1999
  BooklistPWLibrary Journal
  A Dickensian tale of innocence, urban depravity, and one boy's efforts to maintain his own code of ethics in the face of danger, by the author of Survival of the Fittest. Twelve-year-old Billy has fled the abuse of his life at home and is fighting to survive on L.A.'s meanest streets. After he witnesses a brutal murder, Billy becomes the center of terrifying attention from the media, from violent bounty hunters, and from the murderer himself.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
• The Son of John Devlin
  Author: Kenney, Charles
  Publisher: Ballantine Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0345432940 Date: 1999
  PW
  A riveting read as powerful as any episode of NYPD Blues or Homicide. When a letter surfaces from his long-dead father, detective Jack Devlin is pushed to reopen old wounds . . . and perhaps bring the Boston police force to its knees.
  Suggested Reading: Cops
• The Second Angel
  Author: Kerr, Philip
  Publisher: Holt Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0805059628 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  Set in 2069, on the centennial of the Apollo XII Moon mission, this dystopian, high-velocity thriller reveals an Earth where plagues have destroyed the major food supplies, climatic changes have brought constant winter to the once-industrialized West, and a new and virulent virus has infected the population.
  Suggested Reading: If You Like Michael Crichton . . .
• Blood Acre
  Author: Landesman, Peter
  Publisher: Viking Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0670882070 Date: 1999
  PW
  In Blood Acre, Peter Landsman hones the evocative depth of his award-winning first novel, The Raven, into a magnificently noirish murder mystery - and a shattering portrait of a deftly drawn maddened man.(Viking marketing)
• The Narrowback
  Author: Ledwidge, Michael S.
  Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Price: $ 24 ISBN: 087113716x Date: 1999
  PW
  A riveting and suspensful debut, The Narrowback is a tale of a soulful Irish-American gangster who dares to betray the IRA. Stylish, lucid, and compelling, "The Narrowback is as auspicious a debut as I've seen in years" (James Patterson).
  Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up
• The Big Bad City: 87th Precinct
  Author: McBain, Ed
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0684855127 Date: 1999
  PW
  Ed McBain, master of the tough and funny urban cop thriller, returns with this latest, witty, wry depiction of life and death in the 87th Precinct.
  Suggested Reading: Cops
• Basilica
  Author: Montalbano, William
  Publisher: Putnam Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399144188 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  In this ecclesiastical thriller, a lone priest trudges up the winding stairs to the top of St. Peter's Basilica, only to be helped to a sudden and permanent route down.
• Smoke Screen
  Author: Patrick, Vincent
  Publisher: William Morrow Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0688155367 Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  When a renegade doctor smuggles a deadly virus out of the Angolan jungle, the fuse is lit on a time bomb of terrifying proportions - a doomsday disease that could devastate America.
• Age of Terror
  Author: Plante, David
  Publisher: St Martins Price: $24.95 ISBN: 0312198248 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  Set in the seamy world of the Russian sex slave trade, The Age of Terror offers the harrowing story of a disillusioned young American searching for life's meaning abroad.
• Electrical Field
  Author: Sakamoto, Kerri
  Publisher: W.W. Norton Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393046293 Date: 1999
  PW
  A rare and haunting debut about memory and murder, the unusual friendship between an aging Japanese-Canadian woman and a young girl desperate to uncover the truth.
  Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
• Easy Money
  Author: Siler, Jenny
  Publisher: Holt Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0805060251 Date: 1999
  PW
  Reaching back to uncover a brilliantly concealed operation during the Vietnam War, ducking into drug dens, and blazing across the country, Jenny Siler weaves a devastating tale of death and deception in her dazzling debut novel.
  Suggested Reading: If You Like Nina Zero . . .
• Manner of Death
  Author: White, Stephen
  Publisher: Dutton Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525944400 Date: 1999
  PW
  New York Times bestselling author Stephen White delivers a tightly constructed thriller about the power of a man to delve into the past and examine the deaths of associates from his post-medical school days.
  Suggested Reading: Cold Cases
• Dead Letter
  Author: Waterhouse, Jane
  Publisher: Putnam Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 0399144366 Date: 1999
  Booklist
  The "irrepressible, hard to resist" (San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle) Garner Quinn returns in a new thriller, where her life in the public eye puts her directly in harm's way.
• Inner City Blues: Charlotte Justice
  Author: Woods, Paula
  Publisher: W.W. Norton Price: $ 23.95 ISBN: 039304680x Date: 1999
  Kirkus
  This debut novel featuring black LAPD homicide detective Charlotte Justice is set during the epochal L.A. riots. Justice saves a curfew-breaking black doctor from a potentially lethal beating - only to discover nearby the body of a one-time radical.
  Suggested Reading: African American Stars | Debuts