Pete Simon's all-American life was everything he ever wished for: a good home, a satisfying career, and a marriage still strong and loving after nearly twenty years. But in the days following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, everything is about to change. And it begins with the appearance of a stranger at his door.The man ranting madly about money, death, and forgiveness is unknown to Pete -- but not to his distraught wife, Lily. Only when the man has gone does the truth come out. The unwelcome visitor was Lily 's father, whom she had claimed died long ago in their native France. The next day he is dead, his savagely beaten body washed up in a nearby marsh -- and Lily disappears, leaving a note behind begging Pete not to follow her.As a nation mourns its fallen leader, Pete Simon is devastated by a tragedy of his own. Now, with a business card from an antiques dealer in Barcelona as his only lead, he sets out to find his missing wife, embarking on a twisted and perilous journey that will carry him to Europe, where the hideous crimes of the Nazi aggressors remain fresh in the minds of those who cannot forget...or forgive. But each door Pete opens leads him deeper into a painful and shocking past slowly revealing secrets of greed, terror, guilt, and treacherous collaboration with a monstrous enemy that could shatter everything he believes in destroy everything he loves. And suddenly he has become more than a concerned husband and seeker of a bitter truth; he has become the target of desperate, dangerous men and their terrifying vengeance.A haunting parable of good and evil and the many shifting shades of humanity in between, Aaron Elkins's Turncoat is an extraordinary reading experience, a compelling, provocative, and rocket-paced rollercoaster ride with surprises at every turn that will leave the reader breathless.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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.
