Yesterday's New York Times fiction bestseller list was chock full of mystery and suspense titles, including the new Patricia Cornwell at #3 (Blowfly, not as bad a book as you might think -- see my review in the Sun-Times), the only one of them I've read. The rest are by the usual suspects, including Grisham, Baldacci, Clancy, etc. Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code continues its improbable success, proving you don't have to write a good book to sell well, if you write a timely one.

By my count, 8 of the top 16 and 20 of the 35 total books listed were mystery/suspense titles. Just goes to show you that these are the books that people love to read, even if they're not the best exemplars of the genre.