A GLANCING LIGHT. [Paperback]

Aaron. Elkins (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: SCRIBNERS. NY 1991; Uncorrected Proof edition (1991)
• ISBN-10: 0684192780
• ISBN-13: 978-0684192789
• ASIN: B004GQLJOA
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

More About the Author

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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Art/Mystery lovers unite!, March 10, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: A Glancing Light (Chris Norgren Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

What a fun novel! Great plot-building, great international intrigue. Sort of reminds me of Margaret Truman's "Murder at the National Gallery."

4.0 out of 5 stars light and shade, August 23, 2011

By 

moderatelymoderate - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Glancing Light (A Chris Norgren Mystery: Book Two) (Paperback)

I enjoyed reading this book & since other reviewers have not done so, let me quote the blurb on the back cover:

Mild-mannered and law-abiding Chris Norgren, curator of Renaissance and Baroque art for a Seattle Museum, is an unlikely undercover investigator, but when a priceless masterpiece is discovered in a shipment of reproductions, Chris reluctantly agrees to find out how the painting got there. All too soon, what should have been a pleasant interlude in Italy turns into a bizarre odyssey into shady art world dealings and deadly secrets.

5.0 out of 5 stars An Art Collector's Dream Suspense Novel!, March 31, 2011

By 

Bad Baron 1-6 - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Glancing Light (Chris Norgren) (Kindle Edition)

I hugely enjoy all Aaron Elkins books but, as an art collector myself, finding a compelling suspense novel with such erudite knowledge of the art world is a real turn-on. As an Amazon author myself HIPAA Hysteria JAGC-Off I know how hard it is to write a compelling novel about such an arcane field as old master paintings. But Elkins pulls it off. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys suspense and art.