 | What the Dead Know: A Novel by Laura Lippman
Buy new: $10.19 / Used from: $0.67 A cold case suddenly becomes hot when a woman with no identification flees from a hit & run accident and then hints that she is one of two sisters who has been missing for 30 years. Terrific suspense - the social worker was the only character who didn't ring true.
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 | The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Buy new: $7.97 / Used from: $5.80 How can you not be intrigued by a book that is narrated by Death?
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 | Then We Came to the End: A Novel by Joshua Ferris
Buy new: $10.07 / Used from: $0.50 Reading this book was like being back in corporate America - I remember working with people who would count the number of bookshelves in someone else's office or measure the pictures on the walls to see how they compared with the pictures in THEIR offices.
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 | Portrait of an Unknown Woman: A Novel by Vanora Bennett
Buy new: $10.76 / Used from: $0.01 Skip over the religious and political rhetoric, and you'll enjoy this historical novel about Sir Thomas More's family.
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 | Down River by John Hart
Buy new: $8.02 / Used from: $3.50 I read Down River before it won the Edgar award, as a potential book club selection. Although technically a mystery, subplots involving small town life, land usage controversies, and the meaning of family abound to create a high tension atmospheric read.
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 | When the Elephants Dance by Tess Uriza Holthe
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $0.01 Set during the final weeks of the Japanese occupation in the Philippines, a group of neighbors hide out from the Japanese soldiers who roam about, killing anything that moves. Full of Philippine myths and stories and vivid descriptions of a little-known (in the West) time and place.
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 | City of Shadows: A Novel of Suspense by Ariana Franklin
Buy used from: $4.99 Who doesn't love a great book about the Anastasia story, especially with a mystery thrown in for good measure? I was completely blown away by Franklin's historical novel set in Berlin between the world wars.
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 | The Cleaner by Brett Battles
Buy new: $6.99 / Used from: $0.01 Jonathan Quinn is a professional cleaner: he cleans up crime scenes, disposing of bodies and hiding evidence, for a shadowy organization called the Office. Fans of the TV series Alias and Lost will enjoy the paranoia, suspense, and conspiracies.
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 | The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Random House Reader's Circle) by Mary Ann Shaffer
Buy new: $8.40 / Used from: $6.53 Before I read this book, I wasn't sure exactly where Guernsey was, and I certainly didn't know anything about the German occupation. A really delightful epistolary novel about the power of books, letters, and community.
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 | Play Dead by David Rosenfelt
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $3.90 This mystery stars not just one but TWO Golden Retrievers! Although it's part of a series, it can be read as a stand-alone without reading any of the other series titles. And yes, the dogs are well and happy at the end of the book.
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 | Losing Julia by Jonathan Hull
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.01 Fans of historical fiction (World War I) and romance readers alike will enjoy this novel.
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 | March Violets by Philip Kerr
Buy new: $17.00 / Used from: $3.71 March Violets is the first novel in Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy starring private investigator Bernie Gunther. I listened to the audio version read by John Lee - he's absolutely perfect.
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 | Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $0.01 Suite Francaise includes the first two novels in a proposed five-novel suie. I enjoyed them immensely, and when I finished them, I was so sad that the suite was never completed. Mrs. Nemirovsky died in a concentration camp during World War II.
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 | The Gold Coast by Nelson DeMille
Buy new: $9.74 / Used from: $0.93 I think this was my favorite book of 2008, not to mention one of my favorite books of all time. Not a thriller like most of Nelson DeMille's books, it's a cross between the Great Gatsby and the Godfather. The sequel is The Gate House.
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 | The Staggerford Flood by Jon Hassler
Buy new: $11.90 / Used from: $0.01 Jon Hassler is a wonderful but largely unknown American writer. I love his Staggerford novels - start with "Staggerford" and just keep reading.
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 | The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $0.01 The Thursday Next series combines mystery, fantasy, and literary allusions to create fast, fun and addictive reads.
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 | Ten Thousand Islands (Doc Ford) by Randy Wayne White
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.75 Part of the Doc Ford series, based on a true story. Randy Wayne White is another often overlooked writer.
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 | The Host: A Novel by Stephenie Meyer
Buy new: $11.19 Yes, it's the same Stephenie Meyer who writes the Twilight series. No, it's not part of the series. Aliens have taken over the planet Earth and the resistance is fighting back. It gets a little repetitive (would have been a better book with about 50 pages whacked out of the middle), but is still an imaginative fantasy.
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 | The Lace Reader: A Novel by Brunonia Barry
Buy new: $17.96 / Used from: $0.43 The Whitney women have a long history of lace making and fortune telling, but it's not always such a great thing to be able to read the future. Hard to tell sometimes what's the truth and what's a lie.
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 | The 19th Wife: A Novel by David Ebershoff
Buy new: $17.16 / Used from: $1.88 I do love a good Mormon book. Historical fiction combined with a modern mystery.
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 | Half Broken Things by Morag Joss
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $0.01 Three lost people find each other and a home, and learn about the ways in which we deceive ourselves. Psychological suspense that reminded me of Ruth Rendell or Minette Walters.
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 | The House at Riverton: A Novel by Kate Morton
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $3.24 If you liked "Upstairs, Downstairs," you'll really enjoy this saga of English country life before World War I.
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 | The Grave Tattoo by Val McDermid
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.01 A nice literary mystery that centers around William Wordsworth and Fletcher Christian (of mutiny on the Bounty fame). So whose body IS that in the bog anyway?
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