Mystery Bestsellers for the Week Ending March 30, 2012

A list of the top 15 mystery hardcover bestsellers for the week ending March 30th, 2012 has been posted by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books.

As predicted, last week's featured title, Stay Close by Harlan Coben, assumes the top spot this week … and by a decisive margin.

Two new titles debut this week.

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At number six is Guilty Wives, a stand-alone thriller by James Patterson and David Ellis.

Only minutes after Abbie Elliot and her three best friends step off of a private helicopter, they enter the most luxurious, sumptuous, sensually pampering hotel they have ever been to. Their lavish presidential suite overlooks Monte Carlo, and they surrender: to the sun and pool, to the sashimi and sake, to the Bruno Paillard champagne. For four days they're free to live someone else's life. As the weekend moves into pulsating discos, high-stakes casinos, and beyond, Abbie is transported to the greatest pleasure and release she has ever known.

In the morning's harsh light, Abbie awakens on a yacht, surrounded by police. Something awful has happened — something impossible, unthinkable. Abbie, Winnie, Serena, and Bryah are arrested and accused of the foulest crime imaginable. And now the vacation of a lifetime becomes the fight of a lifetime — for survival.

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Four places lower at number 10 is the 9th Maisie Dobbs mystery, Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear.

Early April 1933. To the costermongers of Covent Garden — sellers of fruit and vegetables on the streets of London — Eddie Pettit was a gentle soul with a near-magical gift for working with horses. When Eddie is killed in a violent accident, the grieving costers are deeply skeptical about the cause of his death. Who would want to kill Eddie — and why?

Maisie Dobbs' father, Frankie, had been a costermonger, so she had known the men since childhood. She remembers Eddie fondly and is determined to offer her help. But it soon becomes clear that powerful political and financial forces are equally determined to prevent her from learning the truth behind Eddie's death.

Plunging into the investigation, Maisie begins her search for answers on the working-class streets of Lambeth where Eddie had lived and where she had grown up. The inquiry quickly leads her to a callous press baron; a has-been politician named Winston Churchill, lingering in the hinterlands of power; and, most surprisingly, to Douglas Partridge, the husband of her dearest friend, Priscilla.

As Maisie uncovers lies and manipulation on a national scale, she must decide whether to risk it all to see justice done.

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