STEP ON A CRACK, by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) A detective raising 10 children alone must rescue 34 high-level hostages.

SISTERS, by Danielle Steel. (Delacorte, $27.) After a family tragedy, four sisters with very different lives decide to share a Manhattan brownstone.

THE DOUBLE BIND, by Chris Bohjalian. (Shaye Areheart, $25.) A young woman who works at a homeless shelter struggles to understand the mysterious photographs taken by a recently deceased resident.

PLUM LOVIN', by Janet Evanovich. (St. Martin's. $16.95.) A mysterious man in Stephanie Plum's life helps her track down a matchmaker who skipped bail.

FOR ONE MORE DAY, by Mitch Alborn. (Hyperion, $21.95.) A troubled man gets a last chance to reconnect and restore his relationship with his dead mother.

HIGH PROFILE, by Robert B. Parker. (Putnam, $24.95.) Jesse Stone, the police chief of Paradise, Mass., investigates the death of a controversial talk-show host and a young woman.

THE ALEXANDRIA LINK, by Steve Berry. (Ballantine, $25.95.) A former Justice Department operative turned bookseller hides a link to the secrets of the vanished library of Alexandria from wealthy international thugs.

NATURAL BORN CHARMER, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. (Morrow, $24.95.) Opposites attract as a football player and a portrait painter embark on a road trip.

CROSS, by James Patterson. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) Alex Cross, retired from the F.B.I., has a chance to track a rapist who may have murdered his wife.

HEART-SHAPED BOX, by Joe Hill. (Morrow, $24.95.) An aging rock star who buys what's advertised as a ghost online to add to his collection of macabre objects is stunned when it turns out to be the real thing.

HANNIBAL RISING, by Thomas Harris. (Delacorte, $27.95.) The childhood and adolescence of Hannibal Lecter shed light on how he became "death's prodigy".

HIDE, by Lisa Gardner. (Bantam, $25.) Bobby Dodge, a former sniper with the Massachusetts State Police, now a detective, unravels a mystery that begins with the discovery of six corpses beneath a state mental hospital.

DEEP STORM, by Lincoln Child. (Doubleday, $24.95.) A doctor investigates diseases at an ocean-floor research facility that may have discovered the ruins of Atlantis.

TEN DAYS IN THE HILLS, by Jane Smiley. (Knopf, $26.) During the first days of the Iraq war, 10 friends and family members gather at a home in the Hollywood hills to share their stories.