GOOD BLOOD
By: Aaron Elkins
New York, Berkley Publishing Group
February 2004 (hc)
The publication of a new Gideon Oliver mystery has always seemed to me
like the reappearance of an old friend after a long absence. The recent
publication of Good Blood came at a particularly fortuitous time
for me as it coincided with my period of recuperation following an
unanticipated surgery. Regardless of the circumstances, it was wonderful
to once again lose myself in the world of the world-famous "Skeleton
Detective," Gideon Oliver. After all, it has been nearly four years
since the previous Gideon Oliver novel –Skeleton Dance—appeared
on bookshelves.
All of the elements that one has come to expect from Aaron Elkins’
mysteries were present—and still fresh and vigorous, even though it’s
been more than twenty years since he introduced his physical
anthropologist/sleuth to the mystery reading public.
Elkins deftly describes the setting for his story, the Lake Maggiore
district of northern Italy and the village of Stresa. The circumstances
surrounding the kidnapping of the son of a local industrialist allows the
author to introduce the reader to many of the important characters in the
novel and also to the sociological class structure of, which in many ways
retains much of its pre-democratic roots—an element important in the
unfolding of the story.
Gideon Oliver, on holiday from his teaching and research duties in the
United States, is drawn into a web of decades-old intrigue when the local
police request his expertise upon the discovery of a body shallowly buried
in the gravels of a construction site owned by the industrialist whose son
had recently been kidnapped. The body proves to be much older and
therefore not that of the kidnapped Achille de Grazia. Yet forces seem to
be unleashed with the discovery of the body and Gideon, his wife Julie,
and his old friend Phil Boyajian (they were grad school colleagues at the
University of Wisconsin) and all are drawn into a vortex of family hatreds
and jealousies--and murder.
The plot is complex and satisfying, the characters are fully developed
and richly textured, the setting is lovingly described, and Gideon Oliver
remains one of the truly fine creations in all of detective fiction—alternately
witty, self-deprecating, pompous, tough and vulnerable. Throw in a great
deal of the minutia of physical anthropology and you have a great mystery
novel. I only hope we Gideon Oliver fans don’t have to wait another
three or four years for the next one!
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