NOT LYING: Like a lot of writers, the suspense novelist Catherine Coulter keeps in touch with readers through an official Web site, where along with the usual publicity updates she also posts cat pictures and Tim Tebow fan notes. "If he's got a real shot as a QB," she wrote recently, "it's the Patriot organization that can give it to him." Coulter grew up on a Texas horse ranch, and even in her standard book announcements she retains an affable homey twang. Touting the release of "Bombshell" - her 17th F.B.I. thriller, which enters the hardcover fiction list at No. 5 - she wrote that it "makes its debut dressed in incredible finery. I guarantee it's going to knock your socks off. I am not lying. Coulter's previous F.B.I. book, "Backfire," is also doing well, at No. 6 in its third week on the mass market list. "Do you know," Coulter wrote of "Backfire" on her site, "I happened to pick it up, not really paying attention, and read a couple of pages and thought, "Wow, is this good or what!" VIGILANTE CRITICISM: Chuck Klosterman's pop cultural meditation on villainy, "I Wear the Black Hat," hits the hardcover nonfiction list at No. Among other things, the book revisits an episode often cited as a precursor to the George Zimmerman case - that of the "subway vigilante" Bernhard Goetz, who claimed self-defense after shooting four black teenagers in 1984. But Klosterman, who weighs Goetz's story against the tidy cinematic vigilantism of "Batman" and "Death Wish," said via e-mail that he resists the Zimmerman comparison: "With Goetz, you're looking at a person reacting to crime and, at least from the perspective of someone living in New York in 1984, operating as a problematic agent against the violent conditions of the city. He's the classic definition of a vigilante. Conversely, Zimmerman is generally depicted as actively pursuing a kid who simply looked like a hypothetical criminal. He's not really a vigilante at all. I suppose you could say Goetz was like Charles Bronson in the middle of "Death Wish" and Zimmerman was like Bronson at the end of "Death Wish." But what connects them is that people's reaction to each case is really just a personification of their pre-existing political views. The specific details become almost irrelevant. GIRL, YOU'LL BE A WOMAN SOON: It's not always clear, looking at the children's best-seller lists, whether children or their parents are the ones driving sales of a particular title. But in the case of "The Care and Keeping of You" (at No. 5 on the middle-grade list after 18 weeks) and its sequel, "The Care and Keeping of You 2" (right behind it at No. 6, also after 18 weeks), my money is on Mom and Dad - well, O.K., on Mom. Published by American Girl, these books offer girls a preview of what puberty has in store for them, along with guidance on everything from personal grooming ("Whatever you do, never shave dry!") to peer pressure ("It's easy to get lost in the crowd and lose sight of what's right for you"). But the pediatrician Cara Natterson, who wrote Volume 2, emphasizes that the books aren't meant to take the place of good parental communication. "You need to have the Talk with your kid," she said in an online discussion in February. And not just once but many times, slowly, over many years. Whether your children will listen is another question - but that's where the books can help. As one mother told "Good Morning America" a few months ago: "I just said, "Here, you can read this." And she got a little embarrassed and said, "Mom, this is awkward." But I did go into her room many times and see her reading it.