Aaron Elkins Book order

The first novel introducing forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver, known as "The Skeleton Detective," is back in print with an electrifying new package design.

It begins with the appearance of a stranger at his door -- an unwelcome visitor ranting madly about money, death, and forgiveness; a man known all too well to Pete's distraught wife, her father. The next day the man is dead -- and Lily disappears, leaving a note behind begging Pete not to follow. Now, with a business card from an antiques dealer in Barcelona as his only lead, Pete Simon embarks on a twisted and perilous journey that will carry him to places where the hideous crimes of the Nazi aggressors remain fresh in the minds of those who cannot forget ... or forgive. But each door he opens leads him deeper into a painful and shocking past. And suddenly an ordinary American has become more than a concerned husband and seeker of a bitter truth; he has become the target of desperate, dangerous men and their terrifying vengeance. A haunting parable of good and evil and all the shifting shades of humanity in between, by the Edgar Award-winning master of suspense.

"There is a small village in France that is well known for pate de foie gras . . .and bones. Boasting the largest concentration of prehistoric fossils in Europe, Les Eyzies-de-Tayac is the home of the prestigious Institut de Prehistoire—where eminent scientists study and squabble ...and perhaps, on occasion, commit murder."Professor Gideon Oliver knows bones. That's why the mild-mannered sometime-investigator is the forensic specialist the Chief Inspector in Les Eyzies calls when a local dog emerges from a nearby cave carrying parts of a human skeleton—and a not-all-that-long-ago-interred one at that. But murder piles on murder—and surprise upon electrifying surprise—following Gideon's arrival, as his search for answers leads him quickly, into the darkest corners of the scientific community ... and sets him on a shocking trail of death, greed, and deception nearly forty thousand years in the making.

Antropologové jsou zvyklí na práci s lidskými kostmi. Avšak i na tak zkušeného vědce, navíc i amatérského detektiva, jakým je profesor Gideon Oliver, je trochu příliš, musí-li se zabývat zmizením ostatků svého ctěného kolegy, zemřelého za podivných okolností. A ukazuje se, že to není poslední mrtvý, kterého mu vypočítavý vrah položí do cesty.

American art historian Ben Revere braves assassins while searching Europe for a shipment of art stolen by the Nazis in World War II. One of the paintings, a Velazquez, surfaced in Boston where it was sold to a pawnbroker for one hundred dollars. By the author of Twenty Blue Devils.