Fiction

1. “At Risk,” by Patricia Cornwell (Putnam, $21.95). A Massachusetts state investigator applies DNA and other forensic techniques to a cold murder case; written as a serial for The New York Times Magazine.

2. “Beach Road,” by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge (Little, Brown, $27.95). An East Hampton lawyer becomes involved in a highly publicized trial that pits locals against the super-rich.

3. “Dead Watch,” by John Sandford (Putnam, $26.95). A political operative investigates the murder of a former senator.

4. “The Hard Way,” by Lee Child (Delacorte, $25). When his wife is kidnapped, a man who deals in illegal soldiers turns to the former military cop Jack Reacher.

5. “Two Little Girls in Blue,” by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster, $25.95). A small girl communicates telepathically with her kidnapped twin.

Nonfiction

1. “Marley & Me,” by John Grogan (Morrow, $21.95). A newspaper columnist and his wife learn some life lessons from their neurotic dog.

2. “Wisdom of Our Fathers,” by Tim Russert (Random House, $22.95). The host of “Meet the Press” presents readers’ letters about their fathers in response to his book “Big Russ and Me.”

3. “Dispatches from the Edge,” by Anderson Cooper (HarperCollins, $24.95). The CNN correspondent describes a year of covering the tsunami in Sri Lanka, the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina.

4. “Mayflower,” by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking, $29.95). How America began, from the author of “In the Heart of the Sea.”

3. “The World is Flat,” by Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.50; updated and expanded edition, $30). A columnist for The New York Times analyzes 21st-century economics and foreign policy.