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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another clever little gem,
By
This review is from: Uneasy Relations (A Gideon Oliver Mystery) (Hardcover)
It's becoming a tradition. Every year Aaron Elkins publishes a new Gideon Oliver mystery. Every year I review it, give it four or five stars, and point out that Elkins is the best writer of classical mysteries working today.
Well, here we go again. _Uneasy Relations_ is a beautifully-crafted, intelligent, witty, and fascinating mystery in the tradition of Doyle, Christie, Sayers, and Stout. It's practically a textbook example. Last year's _Little Tiny Teeth_, while also excellent, incorporated some thriller elements. _Uneasy Relations_ plays it straight: detective, body, limited circle of suspects, clues, deductions, revelation. In other words, bliss. That is, unless you're looking for gunshots and car chases and beatings, in which case, move along; there's nothing to see here. Elkins keeps the narrative moving, giving nothing away before its time, always keeping his hero in the thick of things, constantly dangling little revelations in front of the reader. This is a good book in which to match wits with the detective. Gideon's forensic knowledge is well-displayed, and it's important to the plot, but logic and attention to detail are no less so. It's talky, sure, but that's traditional. And it's *good* talk, both funny and fascinating. If Gideon were real, I'd want to take a course from him--not to mention reading his book. (Plus I'd go mano-a-mano with him in Trivial Pursuit.) The group of suspects is just the right size, and Elkins's usual light-but-deft characterizations made it easy for me to remember them all. In fact, the only nit I have to pick is that I wish _Uneasy Relations_ had been longer. A red herring or two ... a false solution ... maybe a timetable, it's hard to go wrong with an elaborate timetable ... In other words, my beef is really that Aaron Elkins doesn't write enough. I picked up _Uneasy Relations_ on Friday evening and was done two hours later. Having to wait a year for the next one is hard on a man.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Skeletons in the closet,
By tertius3 (MI United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Uneasy Relations (A Gideon Oliver Mystery) (Hardcover)
This is really good Aaron Elkins: scary bits, varied personalities and suspects, a good popular summary of Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon fate, several layers of science mystery that bite, and convincing deductions. Like several of his novels this one has a claustrophobic feel. The suspects are introduced early, they are pretty much the only characters, and they are always hanging around in one grouping or another. No one slinking in the shadows, barely glimpsed; no total red herrings. Since he usually gives a vital clue early in the story, I thought I had this figured, but he has added so many twists as the story winds its way up and down The Rock, he fooled me. Moreover, that clue I spotted, he didn't even use it! Nice job!
It's nice to see Elkins write a mystery around the raging controversies over the human status of antediluvian Neanderthal Man, and make a few acid remarks. Once again Gideon Oliver attends a conference of experts who provide a plethora of suspects--once they turn to violence over their cherished theories and things begin to go bad. But why is Oliver the target, when the bones of contention are not "his"? At the center are the uneasy relations between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon "Men" 25,000 years ago, and in more or less real science. Enemies, competitors, friends, or lovers? Elkins mixes in an amazing number of story lines, each of them convincingly rendered down to their individual misdirections. Each person seems to have a long- buried personal grudge against another--they're archaeologists, after all. Each has a different cherished paleo-anthropological theory about Neanderthal to push to the fore. And most of them are legitimate theories, too, more or less (ah, but WHICH is less?). What fun! We gradually discover that the grudges, and arguments, and scientific errors range back over decades, even to Piltdown Man, the fraudulent skull exposed in the 1950s. All of them take place against the nature of Neanderthal remains found on Gibraltar, whose now-doddering discoverer is ostensibly being celebrated in the reunion. The plot arises naturally from the archaeological setting of the finds and of the conference, as described by Elkins. The Rock of Gibraltar, its buildings, and food are logically and superbly worked into the story. Everything was so convincing I hated to put the book down. Of course, Elkins helps that along with his habit of occasionally including chapter endings such as, "He couldn't have been more wrong." One gripe: why does Elkins put his acknowledgements and sources right at the front of the book? They can spoil the story, or its solution! At the back is better. There he could even add some Suggested Readings!
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gideon Oliver at the top of his form! As is the Author.,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Uneasy Relations (A Gideon Oliver Mystery) (Hardcover)
Uneasy Relations is a superb blending of paleoanthropology and mystery fiction. Aaron Elkins gets better and better with each glimpse into the life of Gideon Oliver and Julie. Even the incidental characters are filled out and make an interesting contribution to the whole, even when deceased prior to the events of the present.
I have long been a fan of popular (as opposed to true scientific) writing about the development of early man (or woman) and apparently am not alone as is indicated by the ongoing popularity of the various programs on Discovery, National Geographic, Science and etc., channels. Most make it interesting but there is still something lacking. Aaron Elkins makes it FUN! I ordered the book from Amazon and have been anticipating the reading of it for a couple of weeks but other things kept getting in the way. Today was a free day and so I picked up the book at eight this morning and finished it just before three. It was difficult to put down for even brief breaks. When I say the title speaks to me, I mean just that. In recent years I have become interested in DNA genealogy and some interesting things have come to light and I wish someone would write mysteries of the same caliber in that field. Well done, Aaron Elkins! Now how long is it till the next one? I can hardly wait.
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