Loot [Audio Cassette]

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Recorded Books (1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0788734725
• ISBN-13: 978-0788734724
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,732,230 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun, Insightful Read, January 26, 2000

By 

Jason Birkby - See all my reviews

This review is from: Loot (Mass Market Paperback)

I have always been drawn toward novels with some sort of historical theme. Aaron Elkins' "Loot" which is about missing paintings, that were looted during World War II. The book starts with a quick history lesson then jumps to present day were one of the missing paintings shows up in a Boston pawnshop. A series of murders send main character Ben Revere, an art expert on a chase to find the killers plus the rightful owners of the precious works.

Revere ends up running all over Europe, and Elkins descriptions of cities like Vienna and St. Petersburg make you feel like you have been there. The story is paced well and all of the characters are well rounded, almost too well rounded in the case of Revere. Revere is a true fence sitter, and at times his wishy-washy attitude was a little over the top.

In total Elkins does deliver a fine job keeping the reader engaged with a fine mix of action and informative data. Elkins invokes some thought provoking questions. Is looting works of art during wartime a necessary evil, to keep the works from being destroyed? Overall a very well done and enjoyable read.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not a departure for Elkins, despite different marketing, July 16, 2000

By 

Daniel H. Bigelow (Cathlamet, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Loot (Mass Market Paperback)

Aaron Elkins has always been an uneasy fit in the mystery genre where his books about "Bone Detective" Gideon Oliver have been pigeonholed. His books are more adventures than mysteries, and the mystery elements tend to seem like plot twists rather than clues. Loot, starring new Elkins protagonist Ben Revere, is marketed as a thriller, which I suppose makes as much sense as mystery does for the kind of book Elkins writes. But make no mistake - despite the change in marketing strategy, this is a vintage Elkins work, much of a piece with his Chris Norgren art "mysteries."

When I say that Loot is much like Elkins's other work, that is a recommendation. Elkins's writing style is wonderful: knowing without being jaded, cynical without being downbeat, and full of amusing and telling details. When I read his Gideon Oliver mysteries, I end up wishing I were an anthropologist; when I read his Chris Norgren mysteries, I end up wishing I were a curator in a fine arts museum. Finishing Loot, I found myself caught up in the hero's quest to repatriate art stolen during World War II. I keep hoping that he will one day spawn a host of Elkins imitators I can read, but until then, you can only get the Elkins style from Elkins.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It Works For Me, June 7, 2000

By 

AntiochAndy "antiochandy" (Antioch, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Loot (Mass Market Paperback)

I liked this book. Several things about it appealed to me. First, I have come to recognize Elkins as a writer of intelligent and entertaining mysteries, and this one doesn't disappoint on that score. It keeps you wondering what's really going on right up to the end. The story revolves around a truckload of art stolen by the Nazis during the War and headed for storage in the Austrian Alps. The truck disappears from the convoy it is in, but a painting known to have been on it shows up in a Boston pawn shop fifty years later. Murder and mayhem ensue.

Second, at a time when there are pseudo-intellectuals trying to white-wash Adolph Hitler and arguing that the holocaust was a hoax, Elkins presents examples of the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis on the rest of humanity. The legacy of WW II isn't something to be taken lightly. Such barbarism is all too common, on a smaller scale, even today. Witness Milosevic.

Finally, I enjoy the quirky characterers Elkins creates. This book introduces Dr. Benjamin Revere, an art historian and occaissional investigator. Mysteries aren't characterised by an emphasis on character development -- the plot is the thing. But, as Sherlock Holmes, Maud Silver, Gideon Oliver, Perry Mason and many others have demonstated, a good main mystery character can take on a life of his/her own over the course of a career. Ben Revere is off to a good start.