Power Rankings

A weekly look at the bestseller lists, arbitrarily reordered according to how they SHOULD be doing (with the main criterion being how quickly I can generate a mildly amusing one-liner)

[Note: due to time constraints this week, there are no movie power rankings. Sorry.]

Books

1. Play Dirty, by Sandra Brown (NYT chart position: #2)
NYT description: "A disgraced N.F.L. quarterback struggles to remake his life in the face of a strange assignment from an eccentric millionaire and the machinations of a crooked detective."

• Wow, the Michael Vick books are already hitting the shelves. Let me guess, the eccentric millionaire is Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, the crooked cop is former LA detective Mark Furhman, and the strange assignment is to solve the Nicole Brown murder. Can Vick crack the case alongside his K-9 companion Rex, or will he surrender to temptation and abandon Rex to a high stakes dogfighting ring?
  

2. Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan (NYT chart position: #5)
NYT description: "A historical novel about the scandalous affair between a married Chicago woman and the architect Frank Lloyd Wright."

• Horan has already planned a sequel called Hating Frank. In it, the married woman's husband discovers the illicit affair after, ironically, he purchases a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Oak Park.
  

3. The Burnt House, by Faye Kellerman (NYT chart position: #10)
NYT description: "Lt. Peter Decker of the L.A.P.D. and his wife, Rina Lazarus, investigate a mysterious plane crash."

• What the synopsis doesn't explain is that, in the preceding book, The Burnt Marriage, a relationship counselor ordered Decker to bring his wife along on his investigations as a marriage building exercise . . . with hilarious consequences. The whole precinct collapsed into uproarious laughter every time Decker and Lazarus got in a fight over directions on the way to a bank robbery or murder scene. And no, "Rina Lazarus" is not her undercover name.
  

4. Critical, by Robin Cook (NYT chart position: #14)
NYT description: "A pair of New York City medical examiners investigating a rash of hospital deaths uncover corporate intrigue."

• Tired of writing vacuous descriptions for cookie cutter Robin Cook novels, the promotional copywriter at Putnam was fired shortly after submitting "Forensic specialists, deaths, hospitals, big shadowy corporations, intrigue, exciting twist, etc" for Critical.
  

5. Force of Nature, by Suzanne Brockmann (NYT chart position: #3)
NYT description: "A Florida P.I. and his assistant infiltrate the circle of a crime boss who may be involved in international terrorism; the 11th Troubleshooters novel."

• Force of Nature deals with complex psychological themes, especially that of feeling "overwhelmed." This is because, in the 10th Troubleshooters novel, the assistant merely had to figure out why the printer wasn't working, even though he had clearly installed the correct driver and printed a test sheet.