I’ve read most of Aaron Elkins’ Gideon Oliver “the bone detective” mysteries and find them all intriguing. Oh, the things you can discover from a pile of old bones.

The reason I picked up UNEASY RELATIONS again is because it is set in Gibraltar, a place I visited last month. Wow, the places Elkins described came alive, from the cable car to the top of the Rock, the insolent Barberie Apes, the view of the knife-sharp top edge of the massive Rock, to the stalactite-filled St Michael’s cave where Gideon gives a lecture. Also the airport runway that he and DCI Fausto had to drive across to check out evidence in another town. (I even read scenes to my husband.)

Anyway, at the once-in-five-years symposium of archeologists & paleontologists, Gideon finds himself a near victim of several murder attempts. Someone else isn’t so lucky. Could it be the Paper he’s to lecture on, about fraud in the archelogy community?  Was it a question about the Neanderthal bones discovered in Gibraltar? Or was someone simply jealous of his success?

Gideon pieces it together finally, with help from his lovely wife and the smooth dressing Detective Chief Inspector. But it’s a shock that will reverberate for years.

I love Elkins’ hero – so intelligent he sometimes misses the ordinary. But give Gideon Oliver a set of bones and no one can catch him.

An excellent narration by Joel Richards is the icing on the top.