Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore's Annual Bestsellers: 2010

2010 annual list of the 10 bestselling books at Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore.

These Bestsellers are determined by a variety of factors (e.g. Author Signings, Mystery & History Discussion Groups' choices, Special Programs like "Meeting of the Minds" and "Beans 'N the Pot: What's Cookin' in History and Mystery", Newspaper & Magazine listings, etc,)in addition to customer & staff recommendations.

Grace Under Pressure (Mass Market Paperback)

$7.99
ISBN-13: 9780425235218
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Berkley, 6/2010

Publishers Weekly

Launching the Manor of Murder series with plenty of thrills and laughs, Hyzy (the White House Chef mysteries) creates the well-researched and believable estate of Marshfield Manor, part mansion and part museum. As assistant curator Grace Wheaton is handling a loud disturbance in the tea room, gunshots ring out from the fourth floor. Head curator Abe is killed, and the murderer mysteriously vanishes from the study. When billionaire Bennett Marshfield reveals that he's been receiving threatening letters from someone who might be the killer, Grace undertakes an amateur investigation, which includes looking into a local Ponzi scheme and her own family secrets. Well-drawn characters like busybody secretary Frances, handsome landscape architect Jack, and stalking wannabe PI Ronny are supported by lively subplots, laying series groundwork to rival Marshfield Manor's own elaborate structure. (June)


$21.99
ISBN-13: 9780446563086
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Grand Central Publishing, 4/2010
 

Synopsis

Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness."

"My baby boy..." she whispers before dying.

Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.

When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.

While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.

 

$5.99
ISBN-13: 9780689839689
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Aladdin, 1/2001

Synopsis


Eleven-year-old Hallelujah is fascinated by the fires burning all over the city of Chicago. Little does she realize that her life will be changed forever by the flames that burn with such bright fascination for her.

The year is 1871 and this event will later be called the Great Chicago Fire. Hallelujah and her newfound friend Elizabeth are as different as night and day; but their shared solace will bind them as friends forever, as a major American city starts to rebuild itself.


$12.99
ISBN-13: 9781590804247
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: Echelon Press Publishing, 4/2005
In the shadowy metropolis that is 1938 Chicago, Steve Malek is a Tribune police reporter in a city gripped by the Kelly-Nash political machine and the post-Capone crime syndicate. In Malek's depression-era world, the Tribune is the largest of the town's fiercely competative daily papers. With the winds of change blowing in, Malek senses the story of a lifetime when a reform candidate for mayor is gunned down by an unknown assailant. Incurring the anger of his editors, Malek ranges far beyond his beat, plunging into a maverick investigation of the murder that soon spins beyond his control. However, it's the other side of the law, displeased with Malek's inquiries, that leaves him dangling on the edge of life and death.  

$19.95
ISBN-13: 9781605980997
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Pegasus Books, 8/2010

In this new collection of James Bond novels, published in trade paperback for the first time, we are once again treated to the thrilling adventures of Fleming’s classic hero, first in The Facts of Death, which pits Britain’s famed secret agent against a fanatic cult who has murdered M’s lover; then in Zero Minus Ten, where Bond finds himself in Hong Kong to investigate a series of deadly shipping explosions; and finally in The Man with the Red Tattoo,
where Bond must stop a Japanese crime ring from attempting a mass assassination with a deadly strain of the West Nile virus.

As an added bonus for the fanatical Bond fan base, the collection includes two short stories never before published in book form, "Live at Five" and "Midsummer Night’s Doom."

Through it all, Raymond Benson masterfully evokes the classic Bond flair, romance, and elan that made Ian Fleming’s novels worldwide bestsellers.


Death at Hull House (Paperback)

$14.99
ISBN-13: 9780984067602
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Allium Press, 12/2009

Synopsis

In this well-plotted sequel to "Death at the Fair," Emily Cabot finds work at Hull House, the famous settlement established by Jane Addams. There she quickly becomes involved in the political and social problems of the immigrant community. But when a man who works for a sweatshop owner is murdered in the Hull House parlor, Emily must determine whether one of her colleagues is responsible, or whether the real reason for the murder is revenge for a past tragedy in her own family. As a smallpox epidemic spreads through the impoverished west side of Chicago, the very existence of the settlement is threatened and Emily finds herself in jeopardy from both the deadly disease and a killer.


$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780743256193
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Touchstone, 5/2005
 Synopsis

An atmospheric debut novel set on the gritty streets of Victorian London, Some Danger Involved introduces detective Cyrus Barker and his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, as they work to solve the gruesome murder of a young scholar in London's Jewish ghetto. When the eccentric and enigmatic Barker takes the case, he must hire an assistant, and out of all who answer an ad for a position with "some danger involved," he chooses downtrodden Llewelyn, a gutsy young man with a murky past.

As they inch ever closer to the shocking truth behind the murder, Llewelyn is drawn deeper and deeper into Barker's peculiar world of vigilante detective work, as well as the heart of London's teeming underworld. Brimming with wit and unforgettable characters and steeped in authentic period detail, Some Danger Involved is a captivating page-turner that introduces an equally captivating duo.

 

The Sherlockian (Hardcover)

$24.99
ISBN-13: 9780446572590
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Twelve, 12/2010
 Synopsis

In December 1893, Sherlock Holmes-adoring Londoners eagerly opened their Strand magazines, anticipating the detective's next adventure, only to find the unthinkable: his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, had killed their hero off. London spiraled into mourning — crowds sported black armbands in grief — and railed against Conan Doyle as his assassin.

Then in 1901, just as abruptly as Conan Doyle had "murdered" Holmes in "The Final Problem," he resurrected him. Though the writer kept detailed diaries of his days and work, Conan Doyle never explained this sudden change of heart. After his death, one of his journals from the interim period was discovered to be missing, and in the decades since, has never been found.

Or has it?

When literary researcher Harold White is inducted into the preeminent Sherlock Holmes enthusiast society, The Baker Street Irregulars, he never imagines he's about to be thrust onto the hunt for the holy grail of Holmes-ophiles: the missing diary. But when the world's leading Doylean scholar is found murdered in his hotel room, it is Harold - using wisdom and methods gleaned from countless detective stories - who takes up the search, both for the diary and for the killer.

 

$26.00
ISBN-13: 9780805091274
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Times Books, 6/2010
 Synopsis

The bestselling author of Overthrow offers a new and surprising vision for rebuilding America's strategic partnerships in the Middle East

What can the United States do to help realize its dream of a peaceful, democratic Middle East? Stephen Kinzer offers a surprising answer in this paradigm-shifting book. Two countries in the region, he argues, are America's logical partners in the twenty-first century: Turkey and Iran.

Besides proposing this new "power triangle," Kinzer also recommends that the United States reshape relations with its two traditional Middle East allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia. This book provides a penetrating, timely critique of America's approach to the world's most volatile region, and offers a startling alternative.

Kinzer is a master storyteller with an eye for grand characters and illuminating historical detail. In this book he introduces us to larger-than-life figures, like a Nebraska schoolteacher who became a martyr to democracy in Iran, a Turkish radical who transformed his country and Islam forever, and a colorful parade of princes, politicians, women of the world, spies, oppressors, liberators, and dreamers.

Kinzer's provocative new view of the Middle East is the rare book that will richly entertain while moving a vital policy debate beyond the stale alternatives of the last fifty years.

   
   

$16.99
ISBN-13: 9780984067657
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Allium Press, 12/2010

Synopsis

Someone is trying to kill Lila Hilliard. During the Christmas holidays she returns from running errands to find her family home in flames, her father and brother trapped inside. Later, she is attacked by a mysterious man on a motorcycle. . . and the threats don't end there.

As Lila desperately tries to piece together who is after her and why, she uncovers information about her father's past in Chicago during the volatile days of the late 1960s . . . information he never shared with her, but now threatens to destroy her.

Part thriller, part historical novel, and part love story, Set the Night on Fire paints an unforgettable portrait of Chicago during a turbulent time: the riots at the Democratic Convention . . . the struggle for power between the Black Panthers and SDS . . . and a group of young idealists who tried to change the world.