FICTION
1. THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE, by Neil Gaiman. (Morrow/HarperCollins.) A middle-aged man recalls his lonely childhood and his friendship with a remarkable girl.
2. INFERNO, by Dan Brown. (Doubleday.) On the run in Florence, symbologist Robert Langdon must decipher a series of codes created by a Dante-loving scientist.
3. AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED, by Khaled Hosseini. (Riverhead.) A multigenerational family saga centers on a brother and sister born in Afghanistan; from the author of "The Kite Runner."
4. BAD MONKEY, by Carl Hiaasen. (Knopf.) A defrocked Miami cop turned restaurant inspector investigates a grisly murder.
5. THE HEIST, by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg. (Bantam.) In the first book of a new series, Kate O'Hare, an FBI special agent, teams up with Nicolas Fox, a handsome con man, to catch a corrupt investment banker in hiding.
6. THE SILVER STAR, by Jeannette Walls. (Scribner.) When their irresponsible mother takes off, a 12-year-old California girl and her sister join the rest of their family in Virginia.
7. THE 9TH GIRL, by Tami Hoag. (Dutton.) Two Minneapolis detectives try to discover the identity of the city's ninth unidentified female murder victim of the year.