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Library | Call Number | Status |
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Searching... Silver Falls Library | MYS ELKINS | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | Fic (m) Elkins, A. 2012 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Edgar® Award-winning author Aaron Elkins's creation--forensics professor Gideon Oliver--has been hailed by the Chicago Tribune as "a likable, down-to-earth, cerebral sleuth." Now, the celebrated Skeleton Detective is visiting friends at a vineyard in Tuscany when murder leaves a bitter aftertaste...
It was the unwavering custom of Pietro Cubbiddu, patriarch of Tuscany's Villa Antica wine empire, to take a solitary month-long sabbatical at the end of the early grape harvest, leaving the winery in the trusted hands of his three sons. His wife, Nola, would drive him to an isolated mountain cabin in the Apennines and return for him a month later, bringing him back to his family and business.
So it went for almost a decade--until the year came when neither of them returned. Months later, a hiker in the Apennines stumbles on their skeletal remains. The carabinieri investigate and release their findings: they are dealing with a murder-suicide. The evidence makes it clear that Pietro Cubbiddu shot and killed his wife and then himself. The likely motive: his discovery that Nola had been having an affair.
Not long afterwards, Gideon Oliver and his wife, Julie, are in Tuscany visiting their friends, the Cubbiddu offspring. The renowned Skeleton Detective is asked to reexamine the bones. When he does, he reluctantly concludes that the carabinieri, competent though they may be, have gotten almost everything wrong. Whatever it was that happened in the mountains, a murder-suicide it was not.
Soon Gideon finds himself in a morass of family antipathies, conflicts, and mistrust, to say nothing of the local carabinieri's resentment. And when yet another Cubbiddu relation meets an unlikely end, it becomes bone-chillingly clear that the killer is far from finished...
Author Notes
Former anthropologist Aaron Elkins has been writing mysteries and thrillers since 1982.
He won an Edgar award for Old Bones, as well as an Agatha (with his wife Charlotte), and a Nero Wolfe Award. His major continuing series features forensic anthropologist-detective Gideon Oliver, "the skeleton detective".
Aaron speaks often at professional conferences, is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, has written for Smithsonian magazine, and is the author of several short stories. His work, which has been published in over a dozen languages, include: NASTY BREAKS (with his wife Charlotte Elkins), MAKE NO BONES, A DECEPTIVE CLARITY, SKELETON DANCE, THE DARK PLACE, and Little Tiny Teeth.
He and his wife Charlotte live in Washington.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Edgar-winner Elkins's cleverly plotted 18th Gideon Oliver mystery (after 2009's Skull Duggery) takes the man "known throughout the world of forensic science as the Skeleton Detective" to Tuscany, where he looks into the apparent murder-suicide of Pietro Cubbiddu, the strong-willed patriarch of the famous Cubbiddu wine-making family, and Pietro's wife, Nola. After examining the remains, Gideon concludes that it's an unusual double homicide instead. The family and its confidantes had motive and opportunity for killing the couple-but why push the bodies off a cliff, then shoot them after they're already dead? The later murder of an estranged half-brother of the three grown Cubbiddu sons creates both clues and confusion. A convincing resolution more than offsets the painstaking discussions of the manner of death that initially slow the pace. Evocations of Tuscany and a lively cast of supporting characters, notably feisty police lieutenant Rocco Gardella, balance the cerebral investigation with charm. Agent: Lisa Erback Vance, Aaron M. Priest Literary. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Yet another lecture/vacation junket, this time in Tuscany's wine region, turns into a murder investigation for forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver and his unexpectedly helpful wife, Julie. Eleven months after he disappeared during his routine monthly retreat to a cabin in the hills, Sardinian-born vintner Pietro Cubbiddu's skeletonized remains are discovered at the bottom of a steep cliff by a passing hiker, along with those of Nola, his wife of 25 years, who'd vanished soon after. Elderly police pathologist Dr. Melio Bosco pronounces the case a murder-suicide: Pietro shot Nola to death then sent her over the edge and followed both steps himself. Luckily, Gideon Oliver happens to be on hand to give a forensic seminar and visit Julie's old friend Linda Rutledge, whose husband, Luca, is one of Pietro's three sons and successors. In short order, Gideon determines that nearly everything about Dr. Bosco's reconstruction of the deaths is wrong. That turns out to be an important finding since a good deal depends on who died first and how, especially since Cesare, a son of Nola's first marriage, is suing his stepbrothers--Luca, Nico and Franco, the eldest son who's now running the winery--for financial and emotional losses. Nor can anyone be quite certain whether Pietro, on returning from the sabbatical he never completed, was going to accept a German brewer's offer of 5.5 million for the family company, which certainly would have strained family ties. A lot less tension for all hands than the unusually suspenseful The Worst Thing (2011). It's nice to see Gideon back in southern climes enjoying the good life, even if he's never cared for osso buco.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The latest in Elkins' Edgar-winning Gideon Oliver series delivers another delicious blend of forensic science and a to-die-for setting. Part of Elkins' appeal is the way he gives intriguing facts and travel tips for exotic or romantic settings. This time it's Florence and the vineyards of Val d'Arno. When Oliver, a forensic anthropologist and professor at the University of Washington, gives a lecture at an international symposium in Florence on how skeletal remains can help solve murders, the local cops offer to take the class to view a set of bones, remnants from a murder-homicide solved the preceding year. Or was it? As usual in this series, the bones speak to Gideon Oliver in ways that the cops missed, and in ways the reader will find both compelling and convincing. The bones belong to the wife of another victim, her husband, whose body was cremated. This husband and wife (here comes the plot stretch) were the heads of a wine-making clan that Oliver and his wife were scheduled to visit. Oliver's intensive forensic exam, plus his questioning of the relatives after he and his wife are ensconced in the family home, totally upends the police conclusions. The family turns out to be as tricky as the Borgias, and the motives for murder elbow each other for precedence. Much about wine, Florence, forensics, and evil. Great bouquet.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
After a three-year hiatus, "Skeleton Detective" Gideon Oliver heads to Tuscany in his 17th entry (after Skull Duggery). The vineyards hold dark secrets for his friends. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.