Skull Duggery

Written by Aaron Elkins

Narrated by Joel Richards

Gideon is happy to be in Mexico with his wife-until he's asked to examine the mummified corpse of a drifter thought to be shot to death. Gideon's findings reveal that the cause of death is far more bizarre. Then he's asked to examine the skeleton of a murder victim found a year earlier-only to discover another coroner error. The Skeleton Detective knows that two "mistakenly" identified bodies are never a coincidence. But if he isn't careful, unearthing the connection between them could make him another murder statistic in Mexico.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Dec 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9781977337580

Aaron Elkins

Aaron Elkins’s mysteries and thrillers have earned him an Edgar, an Agatha, a Nero Wolfe Award, and a Malice Domestic Lifetime Achievement Award. His nonfiction works have appeared in Smithsonian magazine, the New York Times magazine, and Writer’s Digest. A former anthropology professor, Elkins is known for starting the forensic-mystery genre with his 1982 novel, Fellowship of Fear. He currently serves as the anthropological consultant for the Olympic Peninsula Cold Case Task Force in Washington State. Elkins lives in Washington with his wife, Charlotte—his occasional collaborator—who is also an Agatha winner.

Reviews for Skull Duggery

[murderbydeath · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Years ago - years and years ago now - this series was recommended to me by someone on BookLikes.  I never got around to hunting down the first book, but ran across this one at a used book sale a year or two later and bought it intending to hang onto it until I'd read the first 15 books.Fast forward to last week, when I accepted that wasn't going to happen and decided to just dive right in.Turned out that was totally fine, I don't feel like I missed anything at all, and best of all I was presented with a really good, solid mystery.  The pacing was leisurely, which frustrated me a bit at first, making me realising that even in books our attention spans have shrunk, but I found the characters and the writing interesting enough to dig out my store of patience.  I also put it down to read The Chilbury Ladies' Choir when I was about 25% through, so obviously my store of patience could use some building up.Once I picked it up again, though, it just all started working for me.  I like Gideon Oliver, a forensic anthropologist, and I loved the plot structure.  I knew from the start what the first plot twist would be, but that reveal was made so early it was clear there was far more coming.  It was all so laid back I kept wondering how the author was going to manage the moment in any mystery where the MC is in peril.  When it did happen it was so fast and furious and wtf? that it seemed anti-climatic, but from there the story just got more and more nicely twisty until the ending was just clever and satisfying.I can't tell you how pleased I am to have found a new series to seek out and enjoy - and it's one that I'll be happy to acquire at the same leisurely pace as the writing, with a sense of anticipation but not urgency.

[chazzifrazz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The "Skeleton Detective", who is really creation-anthropology professor Gideon Oliver, goes to Mexico with his wife, Julie, for a little vacation at her family's expat relatives. What was to be spent reading, eating and visiting old ruins turns into mystery solving. Not just one possible murder but three!

When the village police chief finds out that Gideon is an expert on bones, he is quick to ask for help in determining if the mummified corpse found outside the village is a victim of foul play or natural causes. Hoping for the latter, the chief is unhappy to find he does have a murder on his hands. A murder that raises questions on a previous death, a disappearance and their ties to Julie's family.

How all these scenarios tie up is intriguing. Along the way, the "Skeleton Detective" explains how he is able to "read" the bones and the body of the deceased and bring to life what may very well have been the cause of death. The fact that he is involved in forensic cases for law enforcement along with his academic life adds to the knowledge.

The plot moves along with a good number of clues and hints, but I was still not ready for the end result. I will keep my eye out for further books by Aaron Elkins and his Skeleton Detective.

A Goodread for me!

[jjmcgaffey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting - didn't vary much from the usual, but the long-term deceit was clever. I figured it out as soon as Gideon was attacked - he'd shown his hand with that. Though the first clue came earlier, during the identification. Lots of standard Skeleton Detective tropes, from the way bodies show up for him to study to his distaste for autopsies, and even the loving descriptions of the food he and Julie get to eat on their various trips. Nice way to sidestep any need for direct action - he took care of himself - and some clever twists with the will. Or rather, it was all very simple but hard to grasp for the people who'd been fooled all those years. I like Carl, Annie is rather a cipher, Jamie, Dorotea and Josefa are even less than that. Heck, Manuel is more fleshed-out than they are, just from that one interview. And Chief Sandoval is highly amusing - glad he got through it (but who's chief now?). I am inspired to figure out exactly where my second metacarpal is (though it won't be particularly enlarged) - I was thinking riding might do it, but apparently it's only the one activity. Like most of the SD books, a pleasant read and it might be worth a reread someday. Oh, one annoying thing - there is a convention of feminists at the hotel, apparently for the sole purpose of being dismissed and considered unpleasant by the active characters. I was hoping they would actually have a part to play in the story, so that they weren't entirely straw men (or women) - unfortunately not, which makes them an auctorial insert I'd rather have not known (that Elkins is an anti-feminist, that is).

[mariealt · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I have a fondness for Gideon Oliver that much resembles my enjoyment of tv shows such as Numb3rs and Criminal Minds. They're quasi-based in 'real-life' applications of science-y things, even when you put them all together it doesn't really work.

But that's okay, because I really do like the characters, and the stories are engaging, and the ends are enough of a surprise that I don't mind how well/poorly they may have been set up.

One thing: there is a point were Gideon and his wife are at the hotel, where it so happens a few feminists are staying for a convention. Julie asks what heteronormative means and Gideon defines it as (paraphrased) 'people who think there are more than two sexes' and both of them are pretty dismissive. While this isn't really my area and I'm not all that well educated about the issue, I do know that it's a gender issue, and there are more than two genders, because self-definitions of gender are often complicated. I let it slide for two reasons: 1) biologically, there are two sexes and Gideon and Julie don't realize that's the issue, given it's entirely out of their fields, and 2)Gideon's just old and doesn't (yet) know better. Since the facts of it were wrong anyway, I'm willing to think that once Gideon realizes his mistakes he'll know better.