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Aaron Elkins

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Old Bones (The Gideon Oliver Mysteries Book 4) Kindle Edition

by Aaron Elkins (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.3 1,259 ratings

Book 4 of 18: The Gideon Oliver Mysteries

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An Edgar Award–winning mystery featuring the forensic anthropologist hailed as “a likable, down-to-earth, cerebral sleuth”—from the author of Switcheroo (Chicago Tribune).

“With the roar of thunder and the speed of a galloping horse comes the tide to Mont St. Michel,” goes the old nursery song. So when the aged patriarch of the du Rocher family falls victim to the perilous tide, even the old man’s family accepts the verdict of accidental drowning.

But too quickly, this “accident” is followed by a bizarre discovery in the ancient du Rocher chateau: a human skeleton, wrapped in butcher paper, beneath the old stone flooring. Professor Gideon Oliver, lecturing on forensic anthropology at nearby St. Malo, is asked to examine the bones. He quickly demonstrates why he is known as the “Skeleton Detective,” providing the police with forensic details that lead them to conclude that these are the remains of a Nazi officer believed to have been murdered in the area during the Occupation. Or are they? Gideon himself has his doubts. Then, when another of the current du Rochers dies—this time via cyanide poisoning—his doubts solidify into a single certainty: Someone wants old secrets to stay buried . . . and is perfectly willing to eradicate the meddlesome American to make that happen.

Voted one of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association’s 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century, and featuring “a thrilling final scene,” Old Bones will captivate fans of Kathy Reichs and Tess Gerritsen as well as readers of Aaron Elkins’s popular Alix London series (Publishers Weekly).

Old Bones is the 4th book in the Gideon Oliver Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Book 4 of 18

The Gideon Oliver Mysteries
Print length

218 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller
Publication date

April 1, 2014
File size

2966 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the flood tides off Mont St. Michel, revered Resistance-hero Guillaume du Rocher is drowned. Already assembled at the Rocher estate to deal with family business, members of the Rocher clan instead read his will. The next day a partial skeleton is found in the cellar and Gideon Oliver, a physical anthropologist, is called to examine the bones. They are those of a young man who died 50 years prior and Gideon believes the deceased was tied to the Resistance movement. When Gideon is threatened, and Claude, Rocher's principal heir, is poisoned, Gideon begins to unravel a web of espionage, family deceit and murder, whose dramatic resolution lies in the secret held by the old bones. This taut thriller won the 1988 Edgar Award for best mystery novel.

From Publishers Weekly

When revered Resistance-hero Guillaume du Rocher drowns in a rushing flood tide off Mont St. Michel, members of the familysummoned by Guillaume on undisclosed urgent businessare already assembled at the domaine du Rocher, where, instead, they hear his will. The next day in the basement, a partial skeleton is uncovered, and Gideon Oliver, American physical anthropologist known as the "Skeleton Detective," is called from his lectures at an international forensics conference to examine the bones. Gideon confirms the remains, determines that they are those of a young man dead almost 50 years, suggesting a connection to local Resistance actions, including one in which Guillaume's brother Alain was executed after Claude Fougeray, a du Rocher cousin and now Guillaume's principal heir, collaborated with the enemy. While Gideon gleans more and more information from the skeleton, Claude is poisoned and Gideon himself is threatened. An intricate plotmore substantial than it promises initiallyis weighed down by a school of weak red herrings, by too much multisyllabic information about bone structure and by characters more caricatured than lifelike. Elkins (The Dark Place and Fellowship of Fear), is better on the muck and sand below the abbey where the action, especially a thrilling final scene, gallops along as fast and compelling as the tide itself.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00J84KPYK
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller; Reissue edition (April 1, 2014)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 1, 2014
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2966 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 218 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #70,308 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #450 in International Mystery & Crime (Kindle Store)
- #801 in Private Investigator Mysteries (Books)
- #1,211 in Supernatural Thrillers (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.3 1,259 ratings

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Aaron Elkins

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I'm 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 my wife Charlotte), and a Nero Wolfe Award. My major continuing series features forensic anthropologist-detective Gideon Oliver, "the Skeleton Detective."

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.

The Gideon Oliver books have been (roughly) translated into a major ABC-TV series and have been selections of the Book-of-the-Month Club, the Literary Guild, and the Readers Digest Condensed Mystery Series. My work has been published in a dozen languages. Charlotte and I live on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, our marriage having survived (more or less intact) our collaboration on novels and short stories.

Although I've been a full-time writer for some time now, I also remain active in real-life forensics by serving as the forensic anthropologist on the Olympic Peninsula Cold Case Task Force.

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4.3 out of 5

1,259 global ratings

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Janet Bentley

Old Bones

Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2017

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Really good book! One of those that has such a good timeless story. This books copyright is 1987. With the exception of no mention of cell phones or DNA testing, it is truly timeless. I enjoyed the story! A great whodunit!

I found a few things mildly distracting. I read most books electronically now. The formatting in this wonderful book was distracting to the flow of reading. There were times a sentence would stop midsentence and pick up with the remainder of that sentence starting a new indented paragraph. After I saw that several times, and I do mean literally several, I came to expect what was happening and it interfered with the flow of the story a bit less. Proofreading should still be done by a human. There were many times that letters were jumbled. Still technically forming a word, just the incorrect word for the sentence. Such as form and from. A few times that words got run together. One more glitch that will affect even fewer readers. I change the electronic page to a black background with white lettering. I find it causes much less eye strain for me. Several chapters were completely as expected. Others, the lettering became exceptionally dimmer. Almost giving a light pink appearance. Those chapters were difficult to read in a room brightly lit with natural light. Even when the contrast was turned completely up. The first 3 chapters, as well as several others, had this formatting issue.

If I could give stars for formatting, it would be 2. I didn't allow that to affect the rating of the book. The story is solid and wonderful. The electronic formatting leaves a lot to be desired.

One person found this helpful

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Movie Maven

Oliver gets two murders solved for the price of one book!

Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2017

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This series is fun. The plot is interesting, reaches back to the French Resistance and takes place near Mont San Michel. What could be bad? Not the food, not the atmosphere. And it is interesting to read as Gideon Oliver 'sherlock' a skeleton, almost giving you the culprit from his observations.
Well done even if wife Julie is back home in the woods. I read this one years ago, I forgot the solution and enjoyed it again now.
I do occasionally cringe at the character details. They are not all charmers and the development can be a little too much for my taste, but the protagonists and the plot are always interesting and very readable.

Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2016

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"'With the roar of thunder,' went the old Breton nursery song, 'and the speed of a galloping horse, comes the tide to Mont St. Michel.'"

"Old Bones," the fourth Gideon Oliver mystery received the 1988 Edgar Award for 'Best Mystery Novel' and was also nominated for the 1988 Anthony Award in the same category. I don't much care for most of the books in this series, but "Old Bones" hit me hard in a weak point: fear of drowning. Aquaphobes beware! This book opens with a spooky scene on the immense, fog-shrouded tidal plain that is Mont St. Michel Bay. The tides in this bay can vary greatly, at roughly 14 meters (46 ft) between the high and low water marks. An old man is collecting shells well out into the bay, during what he thinks is ebb-tide, when he hears an unmistakable sound:

"'The tide?' he whispered, and again: 'The tide!'"

The old man's death is treated as an accident. He forgot to consult the local tide tables, got caught in the bay's notorious quick-sand, was overtaken by the on-rushing water, and drowned.

Then a second, skeletonized body is dug up in the basement of the chateau where the old man lived, and Gideon Oliver, Elkins' serial detective and 'bone doctor' is called in for a consultation.

This author's characterizations are not particularly complex, but he doesn’t cheat his readers of clues. They are also treated to lots of local color, and scads of interesting tidbits about the human skeleton. I enjoyed 'Old Bones' very much, but never found another book in this series that was quite its equal.

5 people found this helpful

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Virginia Smythe

Lots of authenticity included in this fiction story

Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2023

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Well written mystery . I never e r use to like series but this author writes in stand alone style but c a series each successive book forward

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J. A. Mine

My first Gideon Oliver mystery

Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2020

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Published in 1987, I do admire the e-book publisher for not modernizing this novel to make it more "suitable" to a 21st century audience. A case in point is the appearance of a letter bomb in the story. Unfortunately the appearance of the letter bomb was my only disappointment in this Edgar Award winning novel. It just seemed out of place and an unnecessary addition. Surely the author could have devised a more suitable threat to Dr. Oliver from the killer. My memory of the plague of 20th century letter bombs was that they were mostly made and used by loner, paranoid psychopaths out for revenge and by small anarchist terror cells like the Baader-Meinhof crew. Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery. I liked the contrasting personalities of the characters and the smooth writing of Mr. Elkins. This is a very readable book.

One person found this helpful

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S. Byrd

Erratic Pace

Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2017

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The first chapter was excellent, promising an enjoyable read. However, as the book progressed the pace slowed considerably, especially as you tried to keep all the characters straight. Once the characters converge in one location, more or less, they become easier to separate. The descriptions of the characters was distinct, however their voices were not as much so, which made it more difficult. The middle of the book was fairly slow, which made it a bit of a challenge to continue reading. The last 15% of the book picked up the pace and became an enjoyable read again. I would consider reading another book by this author before I made a final judgement about reading the entire series.

3 people found this helpful

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Lucy Ballard

The forensic anthropology Elkins presents as his hero's primary investigative technique is fun and fascinating

Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2014

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This is just one of a thoroughly enjoyable series. Elkins' books bring readers into a setting full of references to anthropological fact and academic politics (and are both reminiscent of, and oh so much more exciting than, my undergraduate Anthropology studies). His characters are thoroughly likable and his settings are varied and well described. His story lines are logical, unpredictable but believable. The forensic anthropology Elkins presents as his hero's primary investigative technique is fun and fascinating.

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Client d'Amazon

Excellent divertissement

Reviewed in Canada on December 13, 2020

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Intrigue bien montée. Dénouement inattendu.

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shirleydawn hughes

Ok

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 26, 2018

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Ok

myrle sundmark

Excellent. My favorited book so far

Reviewed in Canada on December 30, 2016

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Excellent. My favorited book so far.

Volker Lauterbach

confusing

Reviewed in Canada on April 1, 2022

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I usually really like his adventures, this one was too confusing with too many characters and suspects. At the end I didn’t even care about the outcome.

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Old Bones (The Gideon Oliver Mysteries Book 4) Kindle Edition

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