In March, Danish mystery author Jussi Adler-Olsen was on a roll. The seventh installment of his Department Q series, Selfies, hit #1 on the fiction bestseller list in Germany, where it was published by DTV, landed at #4 in France for publisher Albin Michel, and was #6 in Holland for publisher Prometheus. Translated into more than 40 languages, the series is published in the U.S. by Dutton, which will release the English translation of this installment, The Scarred Woman, in September.
Sitting atop the fiction list in France was Guillaume Musso’s latest thriller, An Apartment in Paris. This new novel pairs a disconsolate English cop and an American writer, who are unexpectedly bunked together in the eponymous shared apartment and team up to solve the mystery surrounding the apartment’s former inhabitant, a dead painter. Musso has been a reliable bestseller starting with 2004’s Afterwards; his English-language publisher is the U.K.-based Gallic Books.
In nonfiction, politics dominated several bestseller lists. The French, who went to the polls on April 23, are reading Welcome to Place Beauveau, a tell-all about malfeasance in Francois Hollande’s administration that was the #1 nonfiction book at the end of March. Germans snapped up The Driven Ones, an exposé on Angela Merkel’s contentious refugee policy. The Dutch, meanwhile, put the latest book by Connie Palmen at #1 on their combined list. The book, The Sin of the Woman, looks at the lives of Marilyn Monroe, Marguerite Duras, Jane Bowles, and Patricia Highsmith.
France
| Fiction | Nonfiction | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Un appartement à Paris An Apartment in Paris Guillaume Musso XO | Bienvenue place Beauvau Welcome to Place Beauvau Christophe Labbé, Olivia Recasens & Didier Hassoux Robert Laffont |
| 2 | J’ai toujours cette musique dans la tête I Still Have This Music in My Head Agnès Martin-Lugand Michel Lafon | L’avenir en commun The Common Future Jean-Luc Mélenchon Le Seuil |
| 3 | Ta deuxième vie commence quand... Your New Life Begins When... Raphaëlle Giordano Eyrolles | La vie secrète des arbres The Hidden Life of Trees Peter Wohlleben Les Arènes |
For the week ended Apr. 2; used by arrangement with GFK/Livres Hebdo
Germany
| Fiction | Nonfiction | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Selfies The Scarred Woman Jussi Adler-Olsen DTV | Die Getriebenen The Driven Ones Robin Alexander Siedler |
| 2 | Das Labyrinth der Lichter The Labyrinth of the Spirits Carlos Ruiz Zafón S. Fischer | Penguin Bloom Penguin Bloom Cameron Bloom & Bradley Trevor Greive Knaus |
| 3 | Seit du bei mir bist Two by Two Nicholas Sparks Heyne | Alexander von Humboldt und die Erfindung der Natur Alexander von Humboldt and the Invention of Nature Andrea Wulf C. Bertelsmann |
For the week ended Apr. 2; used by arrangement with Buchreport
The Netherlands
| Combined Fiction and Nonfiction | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | De zonde van de vrouw The Sin of the Woman Connie Palmen Stichting CPNB | 4 | Je ziet mij nooit meer terug You’ll Never See Me Sonja Barend De Bezige Bij |
| 2 | Jihad van liefde A Jihad for Love David van Reybrouck & Mohamed Bachiri De Bezige Bij | 5 | Kunnen we praten Can We Talk Joris Luyendijk Atlas Contact |
| 3 | De dood van Murat Idrissi The Death of Murat Idrissi Tommy Wieringa Hollands Diep | 6 | Selfies The Scarred Woman Jussi Adler-Olsen Prometheus |
For the week ended Apr. 2; used by arrangement with CPNB De Bestseller
