A list of the top 15 mystery hardcover bestsellers for the week ending January 07, 2011 has been posted on the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books website.
The new year begins just as last year ended, with The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson firmly atop the leaderboard. Two new titles enter the top 15 this week.
— ◊ —
In 14th position is Three Seconds, the fifth Sundkvist and Grens mystery by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom, though only the second to be translated into English.
Piet Hoffman, a top secret operative for the Swedish police, is about to embark on his most dangerous assignment yet: after years spent infiltrating the Polish mafia, he's become a key player in their attempt to take over amphetamine distribution inside Sweden's prisons. To stop them from succeeding, he will have to go deep cover, posing as a prisoner inside the country's most notorious jail.
But when a botched drug deal involving Hoffman results in a murder, the investigation is assigned to the brilliant but haunted Detective Inspector Ewert Grens -- a man who never gives up until he's cracked the case. Grens's determination to find the killer not only threatens to expose Hoffman's true identity-it may reveal even bigger crimes involving the highest levels of power. And there are people who will do anything to stop him from discovering the truth.
Three Seconds (original Swedish title: Tre Sekunder) was the winner of the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers' 2009 award for Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year.
— ◊ —
Actually debuting last week just off the list and moving up to number 15 is Dead Zero, the seventh mystery featuring Bob Lee Swagger by Stephen Hunter.
Who killed Whiskey 2-2?
And why won’t it stay dead?
A marine sniper team on a mission in tribal territories on the Afghan-Pakistan border, Whiskey 2-2 is ambushed by professionals using the latest high-tech shooting gear. Badly wounded, the team’s sole survivor, Gunnery Sergeant Ray Cruz, aka “the Cruise Missile,” is determined to finish his job. He almost succeeds when a mystery blast terminates his enterprise, leaving a thirty-foot crater where a building used to be—and where Sergeant Cruz was meant to be hiding.
Months pass. Ray’s target, an Afghan warlord named Ibrahim Zarzi, sometimes called “The Beheader,” becomes an American asset in the region and beyond, beloved by State, the Administration, and the Agency. He arrives in Washington for consecration as Our Man in Kabul. But so does a mysterious radio transmission, in last year’s code. It’s from Whiskey 2-2.
Is Ray Cruz back? Has he gone rogue, is he insane, or just insanely angry? Will he succeed, though his antagonists now include the CIA, the FBI, and the same crew of bad boys that nearly killed him in Zabol province? Not to mention Bob Lee Swagger and a beautiful CIA agent named Susan Okada who gives Swagger more than just a patriotic reason to take the case.
— ◊ —
The top four mystery bestsellers this week are shown below:
Please visit the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books where we are committed to providing readers and collectors of mystery books with the best and most current information about their favorite authors, titles, and series.
DVD
Blu-ray
VOD
