Monday, January 08, 2007

Unnatural Selection by Aaron Elkins

Gideon Oliver's wife Julie is attending a consortium on conservation in the Scilly islands off the coast of England. Gideon accompanies his wife who is invited by Russian host, Vasily Kozlov. Every year Vasily invites guests with varying opinions on environmental issues.

Gideon doesn't have much interest in attending the conference but his experience as a forensic archaeologist is called upon when bones are discovered on a local beach. After some research and testing, Gideon determines the bones to be that of a guest who was murdered and dismembered two years previously. Gideon is asked by the local police chief to help with the investigation, but before there are answers to the many questions that arise in this case, another guest at the consortium is murdered.

I've read almost all, if not all, of the Gideon Oliver series. The last several have been lacking something. I could never really pinpoint what was off-- weaker plotlines, uninteresting stories, or just a series getting old, whatever it was, happily the newest Gideon Oliver book is reminiscent of the earlier ones. I was happily riveted to the story from the beginning. One minor flaw is that sometimes the story got bogged down in the very technical jargon of forensic anthropology. Learning is well and good, but when something is dry and tends to go on a bit too long, it stops the story in its tracks. Also the secondary cast of the guest at the hotel was not very well-developed. I had to flip backwards in the book to figure out who everyone was. They are introduced and then not really part of the story until the end. Regardless of a few flaws, I found the story very enjoyable.

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