"Unnatural Selection"
Forensic anthropology professor Gideon Oliver accompanies his park-ranger wife to the remote, idyllic Isles of Scilly, which dot the sea like an emerald necklace thirty miles off the Cornwall coast. Julie's been invited here by Russian expatriate Vasily Kozlov, scientist, millionaire, and eccentric.
At his home, the 16th-century Star Castle, he regularly hosts a consortium of ecological experts with very differing opinions-which makes for some extremely heated arguments.
While Julie's stuck indoors consorting, Gideon looks forward to puttering around the Neolithic sites nearby. But before day one is through, a newer bone turns up--this tibia is only a few years old-and all signs point to murder.
And just as Gideon and the local law puzzle over the bone's origin, there's another murder at Star Castle. Could it just be bad luck, two murders in this tranquil little community within a couple of years? Or do Kozlov's lively debates have a way of turning deadly?
"Loot"
In April 1945, the Nazis, reeling and near defeat, frantically work to hide the huge store of art treasures that Hitler has looted from Europe. Truck convoys loaded with the cultural wealth of the Western world pour in an unending stream into the compound of the vast Altaussee salt mine high in the Austrian Alps.
But with the Allies closing in, the vaunted efficiency of the Nazis has broken down. At Altaussee, all is tumult and confusion. In the commotion, a single truck, its driver, and its priceless load of masterpieces vanish into a mountain snowstorm.
Half a century later, in a seedy Boston pawnshop, ex-curator Ben Revere makes a stunning discovery among the piles of junk: a Velazquez from the legendary Lost Truck.
With it come decades of secrets, rancor, and lies, and the few who know of the painting’s existence have their lives snuffed out one by one by an unknown assassin.
Revere must travel back to the grand cities of Europe to unravel the tangled history of the lost truck and its treasures before fifty years of hatred, greed, and retribution catch up with him.
Aaron Elkins is a former anthropologist who has been writing mysteries and thrillers since 1982, having won an Edgar for Old Bones, as well as a subsequent Agatha (with his wife Charlotte), and a Nero Wolfe Award.
Elkins' major continuing series features forensic anthropologist-detective Gideon Oliver, "the Skeleton Detective."
Elkins writes, "Lately, I've seen myself referred to as 'the father of the modern forensic mystery,' and, by gosh, I think I am!"
Before "Fellowship of Fear," the first Gideon Oliver, published in 1982, you'd have to go back 70 years and more to Austin Freeman and his Dr. Thorndyke series. Between the two good doctors (Thorndyke and Oliver), there was only Jack Klugman's "Quincy," so far as I know, and he was a TV character.
Aaron Elkins is a former anthropologist who has been writing mysteries and thrillers since 1982, having won an Edgar for Old Bones, as well as a subsequent Agatha (with his wife Charlotte), and a Nero Wolfe Award. Elkins' major continuing series features forensic anthropologist-detective Gideon Oliver, "the Skeleton Detective."
Elkins writes, "Lately, I've seen myself referred to as 'the father of the modern forensic mystery,' and, by gosh, I think I am!"
Before "Fellowship of Fear," the first Gideon Oliver, published in 1982, you'd have to go back 70 years and more to Austin Freeman and his Dr. Thorndyke series. Between the two good doctors (Thorndyke and Oliver), there was only Jack Klugman's "Quincy," so far as I know, and he was a TV character.
