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GOOD BLOOD
by Aaron Elkins
Berkley, February 2004
304 pages
$23.95
ISBN: 0425194116


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Hot Dawg! Gideon Oliver's back and about time. This is the first Oliver book from Aaron Elkins in four years and I had simply not realized how much I'd missed this smart, self-aware, intriguing sleuth.

I say self-aware because Oliver, a professor, has a tendency to lecture and to get a tad pompous; and he knows it and he will shut up fast when he realizes he's gone into academic mode. He's a caring husband, a good friend and an interesting guy. He still gets sweaty-palmed at speaking with a mentor, a professor who used to terrify him; they're now equals and colleagues, but it's still hard for Gideon to say "Bill" and not "Professor". This character is endearing. The books are serious, but the attitude and conversation often have a light touch.

Gideon and his wife Julie are heading off to Italy on vacation. They're going with Gideon's old friend, tour promoter (of On the Cheap tours) Phil Boyajian, who reveals that despite the name, he's Italian and he's going to visit family. Paralleling this in early pages of the tale are a mildly unsavory story of having a baby to continue the family line (I hate the implications of the whole "gotta have a male heir" that continues to this day in so many cultures) and the kidnapping of the heir to the Da Grazia family.

Several days go by after the young Achille is abducted and with the discovery of bones on a construction site, Oliver, the 'skeleton detective' who is bored silly by the tour that Phil and Julie are conducting (Gideon is not the camping out type), is far from reluctant to pitch in with the carabineri to identify the bones that are not, it would seem, those of a 15-year-old boy. But there is a family tie.

I don't know quite what it is about Oliver that I enjoy so much; he is fun to be around, even if he's standing over some skeletal remains. Author Elkins is far too smart to create some stereotypical absent-minded professor type even if Gideon sometimes goes off on those tangents (and so okay, I find myself trying not to sing "the knee bone's connected to the . . ."). I do learn things from the guy, and I like watching him work., as I often enjoy watching any expert in his craft. And yes, he takes me places I haven't been. And the stories are well-crafted.

So it's all of the above. I just like spending time with this slightly fuzzy-on-occasion, smart expert who loves his wife. I want to say 'who wouldn't' but I tend to dislike universals in any review (that sort of "everyone is going to love this book" that usually makes me vow never to read the book.) But Elkins' books have a charm and an appeal and tell a good story. I'd like to think that lots and lots of people will like this book for many reasons.

Reviewed by Andi Shechter, February 2004

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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