Best Books of 1999

Fiction

Jake Arnott, The Long Firm.
Five narrators tell the story of 1960's London gangster Harry Starks’ fall and surprising resurrection in this challenging first novel.

Kevin Baker, Dreamland.
A sweeping chronicle of turn-of-the-century New York featuring a huge cast of original characters.

Melissa Banks, The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing.
Life lessons of Jane, the contemporary American Everywoman, explored with wise, poignant, and laugh-out-loud insight.

Pat Barker, Another World.
Old hatreds, wounds, and guilt simmering from World War I and beyond haunt a family in this novel set in modern Newcastle.

Julian Barnes, England, England.
 A satirical tale of a man who replicates England’s historical landmarks in a theme park that eventually replaces England itself.

Carrie Brown, Lamb in Love.
A shy English postmaster suddenly finds he’s in love with a woman he’s known for years.

Frederick Busch, The Night Inspector.
A Civil War veteran who wears a mask to hide his disfigured face joins a group of outcasts in Manhattan who plot to liberate a group of black children from servitude.

A.S. Byatt, Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice.
A collection of brilliant stories about opposites--passion and alienation, art and life, the human and the mythic.

Philip Caputo, The Voyage.
On a June morning at the turn of the century, Cyrus Brathwaite orders his sons to sail away from their Maine home and not return until September.

Ana Castillo, Peel My Love Like an Onion.
A lyrical, steamy, moving story of a love triangle set in the colorful world of flamenco dancing.

Roddy Doyle, A Star Called Henry.
First of a trilogy aiming to tell the history of 20th century Ireland through the life and adventures of larger-than-life character Henry Smart.

Robert Draper, Hadrian’s Walls.
A debut novel in which the lifelong friendship between a prison director & a notorious convict creates a conflict between obligation & loyalty.

Andre Dubus, House of Sand and Fog.
An American tragedy chronicling the immigrant experience at the end of the 20th century.

Ralph Ellison, Juneteenth.
On his deathbed, a racist white senator summons an elderly black minister to his side. Their conversation and the memories it sparks take them back to their buried past and the tragic event that first brought them together.

Nathan Englander, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges.
A stunning debut collection of 10 short stories encapsulating various aspects of the Jewish experience in the diaspora and the search for meaningful lives in the modern world.

Janet Fitch, White Oleander.
A girl whose mother is jailed for the murder of a former lover strives to maintain her identity as she is sent to a variety of foster homes.

Tim Gautreaux, Welding With Children.
A second acclaimed collection of short stories--tales of family, sin, and redemption from the back roads of Cajun Louisiana.

Gail Godwin, Evensong.
A small-town pastor’s life is dramatically changed by the arrival of 3 strangers.

David Guterson, East of the Mountains.
A widower diagnosed with terminal cancer takes a journey of self-discovery to the West.

Kent Haruf, Plainsong.
From the unsettled lives of three people emerges a solid vision of life, town, and the high plains of Colorado landscape that bind them all together.

Ernest Hemingway, True At First Light.
A revealing fictional account of Hemingway’s final African safari edited by one of his sons.

Laura Hendrie, Remember Me.
A woman in a small New Mexico town who makes a living selling embroidery must face her ghosts to find belonging, identity and love.

Wayne Johnston, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams.
Set in Newfoundland, a story of how fate brings together a witty school boy pursuing socialist dreams and a popular newspaper columnist who writes about the history of the continent.

Ward Just, A Dangerous Friend.
Set in Indochina in the 1960's, civilian hero Sydney Parade attempts to find an American officer captured in Vietnam, and only begins to understand something of the complexities of Western survival in the Third World.

Chang-Rae Lee, A Gesture Life.
A wise and tender novel about a Korean-born, Japanese-raised proper New York citizen reflecting on his acts during World War II as he tries to work out his true identity.

Ella Leffland, Breath and Shadows.
Melancholy exploration of the perils of ordinary life threatening the well-being of members of three generations of a Danish family.

Deirdre McNamer, My Russian.
Francesca Woodbridge, supposedly on a tour of Greece, is really spying on her former life--a recent lover, a wounded husband, and a rapidly changing America.

Valerie Martin, Italian Fever.
Part mystery, part romance, part meditation on the redemptive power of art--a beguiling portrait of the American abroad and an irresistible exploration of our perpetual love affair with Italy.

Peter Matthiessen, Bone by Bone.
The last of a trilogy delving into the character of a Reconstruction-era outlaw whose legend eventually outstrips his crimes.

Anthony McCarten, Spinners.
A New Zealand town is up in arms when three pregnant girls claim to have been seduced by space aliens in this clever and amusing tale.

Claire Messud, The Last Life.
A family of French Algerians begins to crumble following shots from the grandfather’s rifle, revealing realities about their invincibility--told through the eyes of a teenage narrator.

Sena Naslund, Ahab’s Wife, or, The Star-Gazer.
The great whaling novel reworked from a female viewpoint, with compassion and good deeds replacing Captain Ahab’s obsession.

Lilian Nattel, The River Midnight.
Nine interwoven stories portraying life in a Jewish shtetl in 19th century Poland.

Stewart O’Nan, A Prayer for the Dying.
A chilling novel which explores both the nature of evil and the limits of human endurance as a Civil War veteran is called on to save a town from a fatal epidemic.

Lisa St. Aubin de Teran, The Palace.
Glitteringly descriptive story of a former political prisoner who rises in society and builds a palace for the girl of his dreams.

Anita Shreve, Fortune’s Rocks.
In a summer community on the New Hampshire coast at the turn of the last century, a girl is drawn into a passionate affair with a married man nearly three times her age.

Elizabeth Strout, Amy and Isabelle.
Evocative first novel exploring secrets of sexuality which jeopardize a relationship between a mother and her 16-year-old daughter.

Barry Unsworth, Losing Nelson.
A provocative novel of obsession, whose mad hero hides from his own life by his elaborate identification with the great Admiral Nelson.

James Webb, The Emperor’s General.
A Wall Street millionaire recalls his role in the postwar peace process with Japan as an aide-de-camp to General MacArthur.

Katherine Weber, The Music Lesson.
An elegant literary thriller about a passionate love affair, a stolen Vermeer painting, and a violent splinter group of the IRA.

Mako Yoshikawa, One Hundred and One Ways.
Lyrical and haunting tale of a young Japanese-American whose past and future begin to collide.

Thrillers

Dave Barry, Big Trouble.
The humorous columnist’s first novel deals with an eccentric Florida family visited by two hit men.

Tim Binding, Lying with the Enemy.
In the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands, a British detective reluctantly joins forces with a German officer to investigate a young woman’s death.

Alice Blanchard, Darkness Peering.
A police chief must question his own son about the murder of a teenage girl.

James Lee Burke, Heartwood.
An attorney defends a man accused of theft by the town’s most influential citizen.

Jeffrey Deaver, The Devil’s Teardrop.
A document analyst may hold the key to stopping a terrorist from committing mass murder.

Stephen Dobyns, The Boy in the Water.
A psychologist dealing with a personal tragedy takes a position at a private school for disturbed teens and must cope with a drowned boy and a killer on the loose.

Brendan DuBois, Resurrection Day.
Ten years after the fact, a reporter makes important discoveries about the cause of a nuclear war that destroyed parts of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.

Robert Ferrigno, Heartbreaker.
A former undercover cop fleeing a ruthless drug lord puts himself and his new love in danger.

Dan Fesperman, Lie in the Dark.
A cop in war-torn Sarajevo investigates the death of a fellow officer who may have been involved in the black market.

Alan Furst, Red Gold.
An intelligence officer in the French Resistance strikes a deal with the devil.

John Grisham, The Testament.
An attorney is sent to Brazil to locate the heir of an eccentric billionaire.

Robert Harris, Archangel.
A scholar of Soviet communism seeks a journal kept by Stalin that may contain deadly secrets.

John Katzenbach, Hart’s War.
A lieutenant must defend a Tuskegee airman against charges of murder in a Nazi POW camp.

Jean Hanff Korelitz, Sabbathday River.
A single mother who is the prime suspect in the drowning of a newborn is charged with two murders when another baby is found dead.

John Le Carre, Single & Single.
An Englishman helps track down his father who is involved in drug trafficking and money laundering.

Elmore Leonard, Be Cool.
In this sequel to Get Shorty, Chili Palmer enters the music business and investigates a murder in which he’s the prime suspect.

Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn.
A Brooklyn P.I. with Tourette’s syndrome deals with a dead boss and woman trouble.

Walter Mosley, Walkin’ the Dog.
An ex-con tries to rebuild his life but the police persist in fingering him for local crimes.

Ruth Rendell, A Sight for Sore Eyes.
The lives of a girl who witnessed her mother’s murder, a woman bored with her marriage, and a sociopathic boy converge in this chilling tale.

Greg Rucka, Shooting at Midnight.
A former junkie trying to make a new life for herself as a P.I. finds her old life intruding when a fellow patient from rehab seeks her help.

Lisa Scottoline, Mistaken Identity.
An accused murderer claims to be the long-lost twin of the attorney hired to defend her.

Martin Cruz Smith, Havana Bay.
Arkady Renko is sent to Cuba to identify the body of a Russian embassy official.

Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon.
The descendents of two WWII codebreakers find a sunken Nazi sub and discover a huge conspiracy.

Mike Stewart, Sins of the Brother.
Lawyer investigating his wayward brother’s murder must outwit a crime boss.

Scott Turow, Personal Injuries.
A personal injury lawyer who has bribed judges agrees to help a U.S. attorney follow a trail of corruption to the top.

Mystery

Rennie Airth, River of Darkness.
When a family is brutally murdered in a sleepy English village, the trail leads to a World War I soldier with a bloody past.

Donna Andrews, Murder with Peacocks.
Plans for three summer weddings in a small Southern town are interrupted by murder.

Nevada Barr, Liberty Falling.
Park ranger Anna Pigeon investigates the death of a girl who fell from the Statue of Liberty.

Jan Burke, Bones.
A killer says he’ll lead police to his victim’s body if they don’t seek the death penalty, but he has some deadly surprises in store for them.

Harlan Coben, The Final Detail.
Reluctant sleuth Myron Bolitar works to clear his partner’s name when she’s accused of killing a baseball player who was her client.

Michael Connelly, Angels Flight.
Harry Bosch is called in when an African-American attorney working on a case that threatens the LAPD is killed.

K.C. Constantine, Blood Mud.
Police chief emeritus Mario Balzic battles poor health while investigating a gun shop burglary that may be linked to an insurance scam.

Robert Crais, L.A. Requiem.
An investigator is a suspect in the death of his former lover and finds his relationship with his partner is strained.

Deborah Crombie, Kissed a Sad Goodbye.
The key to a murder lies in the past, when a young boy was evacuated from London’s East End during the Blitz.

Peter Dickinson, Some Deaths before Dying.
A pistol shown on the Antiques Roadshow is the key to past events that a bedridden woman must recall so she can die as she chooses.

Aaron Elkins, Loot.
A discovery in a pawn shop begins to unravel a web of deceit that began 50 years ago when the Nazis hid some of Europe’s great art treasures.

Kate Ellis, The Merchant’s House.
A cop who is an amateur archaeologist must call on all his skills to solve a modern-day murder and one that’s 400 years old.

Janet Evanovich, High Five.
Smart, sassy bounty hunter Stephanie Plum seeks her uncle who disappeared after arguing with his garbage collectors.

Linda Fairstein, Cold Hit.
Two NYPD detectives and an Assistant D.A. delve into the world of art when a rich collector dies.

Eric Garcia, Anonymous Rex.
An L.A. P.I. who’s a dinosaur disguised as a human investigates the death of his partner.

Elizabeth George, In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner.
When a woman’s body is found in a circle of standing stones, D.I. Lynley pursues the investigation on site while D.S. Havers, hoping to regain his respect, follows her own leads in London.

Robert Goddard, Caught in the Light.
A photographer leaves his wife for a woman who disappears, and when he seeks her he uncovers a 170-year-old mystery and a dark secret in his own past.

Sue Grafton, O Is for Outlaw.
P.I. Kinsey Millhone finds a letter that raises questions about the breakup of her marriage and about an old, unsolved murder.

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, Shallow Grave.
Bill Slider investigates the death of a woman in an exclusive West End neighborhood.

John Harvey, Last Rites.
Charlie Resnick’s final case involves tracking down a killer who disappeared while on compassionate leave for his mother’s funeral.

Reginald Hill, Arms and the Women.
Inspector Pascoe’s wife Ellie finds that her correspondence with a jailed South American woman has involved her in an illegal arms deal.

Bill James, Top Banana.
A 13-year-old drug courier’s death sets off a chain reaction as police struggle with the question of how to fight the drug war.

Stuart Kaminsky, Vengeance.
A man who wants to be left alone to grieve his beloved wife reluctantly agrees to help find a missing woman.

Jonathan Kellerman, Billy Straight.
A 12-year-old runaway who witnessed a murder is targeted by the media and the killer.

William Krueger, Boundary Waters.
An ex-sheriff races the bad guys to find a country-western singer who vanished in the Minnesota wilderness.

Dennis Lehane, Prayers for Rain.
Two Boston P.I.s whose romance has become rocky reunite to track a killer who drives his victims to suicide.

Sujata Massey, The Flower Master.
A Japanese-American antique dealer living in Tokyo investigates when the teacher of her flower arranging class is murdered.

Michael McClister, Victim’s Choice.
A man seeks revenge on the imprisoned killer of his children while at the same time people close to other convicted killers are murdered.

Denise Mina, Garnethill.
An incest survivor finds she is the prime suspect when her married psychiatrist boyfriend is murdered.

Carol O’Connell, Shell Game.
When a magic trick goes horribly wrong on national TV, Mallory tries to discover whether it was an accident.

Sara Paretsky, Hard Time.
On her way home from a party, V.I. Warshawski almost runs over a woman lying in the street and finds herself in danger of being framed for vehicular homicide.

Eliot Pattison, The Skull Mantra.
A political prisoner in Tibet is temporarily released to investigate the death of a fellow inmate.

Ian Rankin, Dead Souls.
A serial killer deported from the U.S. entangles D.I. Rebus in his deadly game.

Peter Robinson, In a Dry Season.
A dried-up reservoir reveals the body of a woman wrapped in World War II blackout curtains.

S.J. Rozan, Stone Quarry.
Murder, corruption and secrets threaten to destroy a small town when a P.I. is hired to recover 6 stolen paintings.

Troy Soos, Hanging Curve.
Baseball player Mickey Rawlings’ investigation of the hanging death of a star Negro League pitcher reveals racial tensions still smoldering after the East St. Louis riots of 1917.

Marcia Talley, Sing It to Her Bones.
A woman recovering from job loss and a mastectomy retreats to a small town, but her peace and quiet vanish when she finds a body.

Charles Todd, Search the Dark.
A World War I veteran who was told his wife died in an air raid pursues a woman who resembles her and is the prime suspect when that woman is found murdered.

Minette Walters, The Breaker.
A woman’s body washes up on a beach, while at the same time her 3-year-old daughter who witnessed her murder is found wandering the streets of a nearby town.

John Morgan Wilson, Justice at Risk.
A man risks his own life to solve a 15-year-old crime.

Don Winslow, California Fire and Life.
An arson investigator who suspects foul play in a fire that killed a young wife and mother resists pressure from his company to settle the claim.

Paula Woods, Inner City Blues.
During the L.A. riots, a detective saves an African-American doctor from a beating, then discovers the man’s wallet under the body of a former radical.

Romance

Contemporary:

Susan Andersen, Be My Baby.
A New Orleans cop tries to get out of guarding a straightlaced lady by showing her the seamy side of the French Quarter not realizing that she is intrigued by what he shows her.

Suzanne Brockmann, Admiral’s Bride.
An admiral who lost his wife of 30 years falls in love with a scientist specializing in biological warfare while on assignment with her.

Jennifer Crusie, Crazy for You.
A woman with a seemingly perfect life and boyfriend finds things take an interesting turn when she encounters a stray dog and a sexy mechanic.

Rachel Gibson, Truly Madly Yours.
A woman returns home to a small Idaho town for her stepfather’s funeral and discovers his will stipulates that she must remain there for an entire year.

Kristin Hannah, On Mystic Lake.
When her husband announces he wants a divorce, a woman retreats to her childhood home and encounters her first love whose wife committed suicide.

Susan E. Phillips, Lady Be Good.
A bad-boy PGA golfer on suspension who is determined to restore his reputation meets an English headmistress determined to lose hers.

Historical:

Mary Balogh, One Night for Love.
A gentleman is surprised when the wife he thought was dead shows up at the church on his wedding day.

Jo Beverley, Secrets of the Night.
To protect her estate, a woman abducts a stranger and tries to seduce him in order to produce an heir.

Susan Carroll, The Night Drifter.
A man whose spirit can leave his body encounters a lady in his nocturnal wanderings who mistakes him for the ghost of Sir Lancelot.

Julie Garwood, Ransom.
A Scottish chieftain finds himself playing protector to an English lady seeking a fabulous treasure to ransom her uncle from King John.

Judith Ivory, The Proposition.
A lady is charged with the task of transforming a commoner into a gentleman.

Miranda Jarrett, Wishing.
A Colonial American lady finds message in a bottle written by a sea captain outlining the qualities of the perfect woman.

Teresa Medeiros, Charming the Prince.
A fierce warrior who fears only his 12 unruly children seeks a plain, biddable wife to care for them but finds himself wed by proxy to a beauty who dislikes children.

Mary Jo Putney, The Wild Child.
A man agrees to take his twin brother’s place courting a lady who hasn’t spoken since a childhood trauma.

Robin Schone, The Lady’s Tutor.
A woman asks a sensuous rake to tutor her in the erotic arts so she can win her husband’s attentions.

Susan Wiggs, The Charm School.
A brilliant but socially inept lady takes a job as an interpreter for a sea captain sailing to Rio.

Regency:

June Calvin, Siege of Hearts.
Lady who assumes a handsome visitor is courting her beautiful sister refuses to marry him when they are stranded overnight on an island.

Andrea Pickens, The Hired Hero.
Lady in possession of a document vital to the war against Napoleon hires a man to escort her to London.

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Greg Bear, Darwin’s Radio.
Three scientists discover that an ancient virus encoded in human DNA has reemerged, unleashing a potential evolutionary apocalypse.

Octavia Butler, The Parable of the Talents.
A woman destined to be the leader of a dispossessed people undergoes severe trials that test her mettle. Sequel to The Parable of the Sower.

Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Shadow.
A parallel novel to the classic Ender’s Game follows a superhuman child who is taught to battle an alien race.

Far Horizons: All New Tales from the Greatest Worlds of Science Fiction.
Stories from some of the most renown authors in the genre based on their most popular series and settings. Includes stories by Greg Bear, David Brin, Orson Scott Card, Ursula Le Guin and more.

Neil Gaiman, Stardust.
A man promises his beloved that he will bring her a fallen star, but to do so he must enter the world of Faerie.

William Gibson, All Tomorrow’s Parties.
A man can see nodal points in the worldwide computer network that portend significant events in humanity’s history.

Elizabeth Haydon, Rhapsody: Child of Blood.
Haydon has created a rich fantasy world in which a woman named Rhapsody can, through music, attune herself to the vibrations of all things and change their identities.

Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson, Dune: House Atreides.
Herbert revisits the fabulous desert world his father Frank created in this prequel chronicling an earlier generation of the House Atreides.

Robin Hobb, Mad Ship: The Liveship Traders, Book 2.
In order to retrieve her magical ship made of sentient wizardwood, Althea Vestrit sets sail in another ship that has lost two crews and is believed to be mad. Sequel to Ship of Magic.

Graham Joyce, Dark Sister.
A couple think they live in an ordinary London townhouse until they discover a secret diary containing Wiccan herblore and awaken a malevolent force they can’t control.

Ken Macleod, The Cassini Division.
In the 24th century, a young woman leads an elite defense force to rid the solar system of the threat posed by a race of unknowable beings who have transformed themselves with high technology. Sequel to The Stone Canal.

Paul McAuley, Ancients of Days: The Second Book of Confluence.
On an artificial world created by the ancient Preservers, Yama learns that he may be the last scion of the first bloodline, the Builders. Sequel to Child of the River.

Sean McMullen, Souls in the Great Machine.
In the world of the future, an ancient, forgotten device threatens the world with a new Ice Age and the only man who can stop it has disappeared.

Vernor Vinge, A Deepness in the Sky.
An intelligent Spider race that hibernate during their variable sun’s "off" periods are about to awaken into a Golden Age when two human starfleets discover them. Prequel to A Fire upon the Deep.

Connie Willis, To Say Nothing of the Dog.
In 2057, a lady hoping to rebuild the Blitzed Coventry Cathedral helps develop time travel in order to recover the necessary lost artifacts, causing one team to be catapulted back into a delightful spoof of a Victorian novel. Winner of the 1999 Hugo Award.

Gene Wolfe, On Blue’s Waters.
Newly settled on the planet Blue, Horn sets sail on a quest to find Patera Silk, a great leader who can help his new homeworld achieve prosperity. Volume 1 of the Book of the Short Sun.