Top Five Fiction Books of 2008

Cost, by Roxana Robinson (FSG). In this startlingly perceptive novel, a divorced woman struggles to save her heroin- addicted son while trying to care for her aged parents. -- Ron Charles

The Elegance of the Hedgehog,

by Muriel Barbery, translated from the French by Alison Anderson (Europa).

Told by the dumpy, nondescript,

54-year-old concierge of a small and exclusive Paris apartment building.

Gently satirical, exceptionally winning and inevitably bittersweet. -- Michael Dirda

A Mercy, by Toni Morrison (Knopf).

A poetic, mysterious tale about slavery in colonial America that stands alongside Beloved as another triumph in Morrison's body of work. -- RC

The Outlander, by Gil Adamson (Ecco).

A 19-year-old woman has murdered her husband and now, still wearing a black mourning dress, she's running from her brothers-in-law through the mountains of Alberta, Canada, in 1903. A thrilling, romantic adventure. -- RC

2666, by Roberto Bolaño, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer (FSG). This epic masterpiece follows a handful of characters to the Mexican city of Santa Teresa where more than 400 girls and women have been murdered.

-- Steven Moore