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Crime Fiction Stars of 1999
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
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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: 1999PWKirkus
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: 1999PW - The Serpent Club
Author: Coffey, Tom
Publisher: Pocket Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0671028278 Date: 1999PW
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: 1999PWKirkus
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: 1999KirkusBooklist
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: 1999BooklistPWLibrary 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: 1999BooklistPW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999Kirkus
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PWKirkus
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: 1999PW
Suggested Reading: European Mysteries - Hermit's Peak
Author: McGarrity, Michael
Publisher: Scribner Price: $ 23 ISBN: 0684850788 Date: 1999Booklist
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PWBooklist
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: 1999PW
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: 1999KirkusBooklistPW
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: 1999KirkusPW
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: 1999BooklistPW
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: 1999Booklist
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999Kirkus
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: 1999Library 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: 1999BooklistPW
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: 1999Kirkus
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: 1999Booklist
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999BooklistPWKirkus
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: 1999PW
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: 1999Library 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: 1999PWKirkus
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: 1999PW
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: 1999Kirkus
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: 1999PWLibrary 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: 1999PW
"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: 1999BooklistPWKirkus
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: 1999Kirkus
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: 1999Kirkus
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PWKirkusBooklist
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: 1999PWKirkus
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: 1999Booklist
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: 1999Library 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: 1999Booklist
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999Kirkus
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: 1999BooklistPW
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: 1999Kirkus
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PWKirkus
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: 1999PW
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: 1999BooklistPW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PWKirkusBooklist
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: 1999Booklist
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: 1999PWKirkusLibrary 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: 1999PW
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: 1999Booklist
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.
- Broken Lines
Author: Bannister, Jo
Publisher: St Martins Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0312198426 Date: 1999Kirkus
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 1999PW
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: 1999Booklist
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999BooklistPW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999KirkusLibrary 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: 1999BooklistKirkus
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: 1999BooklistPW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999KirkusBooklist
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: 1999BooklistPW
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: 1999BooklistKirkus
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
- East of A
Author: Atwood, Russ
Publisher: Ballantine Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0345427769 Date: 1999Kirkus
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PWBooklist
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: 1999Kirkus
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: 1999Booklist
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: 1999Booklist
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: 1999Library 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: 1999Booklist
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: 1999PWKirkus
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999Booklist
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
- Murder With Peacocks
Author: Andrews, Donna
Publisher: St Martins Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312199295 Date: 1999Kirkus
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999Booklist
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: 1999Kirkus
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: 1999Kirkus
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: 1999Booklist
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PWBooklistKirkus
Suggested Reading: All Stars - Billy Straight
Author: Kellerman, Jonathan
Publisher: Random House Price: $ 25.95 ISBN: 0679459596 Date: 1999BooklistPWLibrary 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: 1999PW
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: 1999Kirkus
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999Booklist
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: 1999Kirkus
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: 1999Booklist
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999PW
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: 1999Booklist
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: 1999Kirkus
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