Customer Reviews

Uneasy Relations (A Gideon Oliver Mystery)

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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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.

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!

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.

Physical anthropologist and homicide solver Gideon Oliver and his wife are attending the annual International Paleoanthropological Society Conference held in Gibraltar. Oliver, known as the Skelton Detective, is going to celebrate the discovery of the First family, a Homo sapiens mother holding her hybrid Neanderthal son. This find proved that the two humanoid species interacted, mated and had offspring.

Although he never worked at the site, Oliver examined the bones of the Gibraltar woman and her son. While on the Rock, only luck saves him from being killed. He thinks someone deliberately pushed him, but is not fully sure if it happened or it was his imagination.. When he gets set to lecture, only the warning of a fellow scientist keeps him from being electrocuted. He thinks the attempts on his life are linked to a story planted by his editor in the newspaper about a revelation he will make. When it is discovered another group member Sheila Chin was not killed in a cave in but murdered also, Oliver concludes someone working the site is willing to commit two years ago but was murdered Oliver decides to start his investigation.

In some ways Oliver will remind forensic fans of Scarpetta as he uses the latest scientific techniques and some intuition to solve homicides. In this tale, Aaron Elkins makes it easy for the lay reader to understand the science behind physical anthropology and the pressure the scholars are under to discover something. The whodunit is entertaining as the suspects are professionally gathered from around the world sharing the same motive and opportunity. Fans will appreciate the Bone Detective as he searches amidst UNEASY RELATIONS to find a killer.

Harriet Klausner

The latest in a long line of Gideon Oliver mysteries, this book can be read by itself but really does assume the reader is familiar with Gideon and Julie. So I will make the same assumption in this review.

It has many of the elements of the best books from earlier in the series. It has Gideon. It has bones. It has Julie. It has a collection of quirky anthropologists. It has a smart local cop. It has a murder.

The main plot of the book centers around a (fictitious) anthropological discovery -- that a neanderthal baby was buried together with a human woman. Gideon is part of a conference gathered in Gibralter to make some speeches in honor of the five-year aniversary of the discovery. But it seems someone doesn't want some of the speeches to be made, and is willing to kill in order to prevent them. Gideon is on that death list.

Elkins doesn't exactly give away the answer right up front (as he occasionally does in his other books), but it is very easy to guess. As usual, figuring out "whodunit" is not really the focus of the book. Instead the focus is on watching Gideon figure it out, through the use of skeletal remains both fresh and very old.

There's nothing really very flawed in this book, but there is nothing very much special, either. Gideon is an interesting character, Julie is delightful as always, and Elkins is a skilled writer who writes pleasing prose and dialog. But there is no character development, no real drama, no amazingly complex bone diagnosis, and nothing that really differentiates this book from most of the others in the series.

Thus, it calls to mind the tellingly bland two-word description of the Earth in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: "mostly harmless".

Creating a sense of place is something Aaron Elkins does very, very well. And he positively excels at choosing places sufficiently famous and remote to hook a reader from the first page. Everyone has heard of the Rock of Gibraltar, but despite its being overrun by tourists at turns in this story, I don't think it's on the itinerary for many Americans. It's a travelogue ramped up by a riveting plot. Who knew monkeys rule the roost at Gibraltar?

But the crux of the story has to do with a fascination so intense that it might be yearning in many to know the "original" homo sapiens and her connection with the Neanderthal. It could stimulate an anthropologist's ambition, even in a deadly way.

In sending up a community of academic anthropologists, Elkins sneaks a wink at the gossip and quirks and jostling of almost any community. There are posers and flirts and pompous bores and strident campaigners: at bottom, decent people, perhaps even the murderer. It's great fun to watch him shift the players, knowing that only one -- his wife -- is reliably on the side of the protagonist.

The science, always a kind of character in Elkins' books, is accessible enough to be interesting and sufficiently arcane to seem credible.

This is more of a romp than a long read, but what a romp! I thought it was wonderful fun.

UNEASY RELATIONS is another good Gideon Oliver book. I've been reading his books since he first started writing and I am now finding myself thinking "yes, I know exactly what is going to happen next and that person is the murderer" and 99% of the time I'm right. I thoroughly enjoy the forensic anthropolgy in all the stories and like all the characters, so I will probably keep reading the series, but I do wish that the author would surprise me with something in his next book.

Aaron Elkins consistently provides a good story with likeable characters. Even the villains seem to have some pleasant qualities. I really appreciate that, because despite everything we learn as children, the bad guys don't always wear the black hats.
The book was well written and easy to read and Gideon and Julie feel like old friends. The story had enough of a "twist" to make it interesting.
All in all, an excellent story.

Gideon Oliver, the "Skeleton Detective" who is the protagonist in this long-running and popular series, returns in this, its fifteenth entry. This time around Gideon, a well-respected professor of physical anthropology in Washington State, is at the Rock of Gibraltar, where he is to speak at a conference celebrating the fifth anniversary of the discovery what is termed The First Family, which consists of the skeletal remains, twenty-five millennia old, of a mother and what appears to be her young son in a close embrace. What distinguishes these skeletons from any other is that it has been hailed as the first proof that humans and Neanderthals could and did live together, inasmuch as the child was undoubtedly Neanderthal, but the woman was just as undoubtedly human. It was deemed the most sensational find of the decade, and as a result, "the study of the relationships between more and less advanced societies was given new life."

Gideon was the lead scientist on a three-person team which reported on the find, and now he and his wife, Julie, a park ranger, have joined them and a few other colleagues at the Paleoanthropological Society conference in Gibraltar, where Gideon is to deliver a paper. A couple of incidents take place within a 24-hour period which could have been accidental, or on other hand could have resulted in Gideon's death, and that, coupled with two deaths, one past and one present, that may or may not have also been accidental, lead him, along with his friend, DCI Fausto Sotomayor, to investigate.

Numerous technical discussions ensue, which, thanks to Gideon's explanations to Julie and Fausto, are not the dry deliberations they might have been, but are interesting and [relatively] easy to follow, indeed often fascinating. Gibraltar is lovingly presented, e.g., "For almost two hundred years the Alameda Botanical Gardens have been a peaceful, restorative haven where the people of Gibraltar would go to get away from the congestion, dust, and bustle of the city. Lovers --- moony teenagers and shuffling old married folk --- still stroll hand in hand among its lush plantings, stately civic memorials, and nineteenth-century cannons, planning their futures and recalling their pasts." Presented as a traditional whodunit, the book is lively and informative, while keeping the reader guessing until the end. Recommended.

Before the last Neanderthal left the planet, he co-existed with his cousin Homo sapiens: did they get along, or fight? When a spectacular archaeological find excites a professor, all seems enlightening and amazing - until a series of accidental deaths casts a shadow over the discovery and involves one Gideon, who begins to piece together clues of a bigger picture than even the murders themselves. Any interested in exciting, complex murder mysteries - and libraries catering to them - will love UNEASY RELATIONS.