Sunday, May 8, 2011

Dem Bones

Read the Printed Word!


As a bookseller and a columnist, I love to give book recommendations. As much as I love recommending books, though, I’m exponentially happier when someone can do that for me. No matter what my day-to-day job is, I’ll always be a dedicated reader, and, therefore, I’m constantly on the prowl for my next satisfying read.

I do enjoy a large cross-section of mysteries, especially this time of year. My patience, like everyone else’s, worn thin with the last clutches of winter and the columns of numbers for the accountant, I turn to mysteries that are well-written but easy on the heart and head. This time of year, I don’t want Pulitzer Prize winners; I don’t want rocket science; I don’t want harrowing memoirs of survival in death camps. I want to know that the protagonist will solve the mystery and live to fight another day. Furthermore, I want the detective to figure out the mystery for me, while I read along with admiration for the way that (s)he does it.

Like many people, I’ve been bitten by the bug of pop culture interest in forensic science. The only TV shows I have regularly watched the last couple of years are NCIS, CSI, and Bones. Before I was a fan of these shows, I read all of Patricia Cornwell’s “Kay Scarpetta” series, in which Dr. Scarpetta, the chief medical examiner for Virginia, solves murder cases with the help of an able cast of characters. Cornwell is an excellent writer in her own right, and though she herself was not a medical examiner, her research is impeccable, recognized and rewarded by many professional organizations in the field.

Whereas Cornwell wasn’t a medical examiner, author Kathy Reichs truly is a forensic anthropologist, as well as being a professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and a continuing advisor to the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Quebec. Once I found out that the TV show Bones is loosely based on Reichs’ books, I read a bunch of this series, as well. The Temperance Brennan of the books has neither the same group of co-workers nor the same workplace as the Brennan from the TV show; nevertheless, the basic foundation of following the cases of this forensic anthropologist makes for fascinating stories. Reichs uses her many experiences as a boots-on-the-ground field professional, at sites as varied as Ground Zero in New York City to the exhumation of a mass grave in Guetemala, to tell the stories of Dr. Brennan, whose life and career has many parallels to those of Dr. Reichs.

More than a decade before Temperance Brennan captured the imagination of America, however, there was Gideon Oliver, the forensic anthropologist created by author Aaron Elkins. Like the bones and relics which Dr. Oliver searches for, the books about his adventures were lying there, waiting for me to discover them. Buried in the years I was busiest in high school and college, Aaron Elkins created this fun, lively series featuring Gideon Oliver, “Skeleton Detective”, part Sherlock Holmes, part Indiana Jones, part Dr. Thorndyke of turn-of-the-century British mysteries.

The Gideon Oliver mysteries hold together well as a series, as a result of likeable regular characters: not only Dr. Oliver, professor of anthropology at the University of Washington, and his wife, Julie, a park ranger in the famous Puget Sound area, but also colorful characters who reappear often, including Detective John Lau of the FBI, Inspector Joly of France, and Gideon’s mentor, elderly but spry, world-respected anthropologist Abe Goldstein. The fact that Dr. Oliver’s work takes him all over the world keeps the series fresh. Dr. Oliver is constantly going somewhere on digs, speaking at academic symposiums, vacationing-researching on sabbatical, traveling to work on a book: all these locales prevent the stale sameness that begins to plague many mystery series. This series combines the best of police procedurals and cozy mysteries, giving the reader a satisfying combination of professional detectives examining clues, leading a murder investigation, questioning witnesses, and well-informed lay people contributing their intelligence and curiosity.

Although I started at the chronological beginning of Elkins’ series, with Fellowship of Fear, it isn’t until the second book in the series that Elkins really finds his stride and brings Gideon Oliver to life. In the first book, Dr. Oliver is a bit of a chauvinist, and the setting, in post WWII-Cold War Era Europe, seems flat and anachronistic instead of being a period piece. In The Dark Place, however, Elkins brings Dr. Oliver to Elkins’ own home, near the Washington state “rain forests”, near the Indian Reservation of La Push (ironically enough, this same area of the world was recently made famous as the setting for Stephenie Meyer’s ‘Twilight’ series). Here, in the shadow of Mount Olympus, Gideon Oliver meets his future wife, Julie, who is a park ranger in the Olympic State Park. To dive in with Dr. Oliver and crew, I’d recommend starting here, then follow the books in whatever order you choose. Mayan curses, the tides of Mount St.-Michel, the barrows of England, and Cro-Magnon cave paintings await you!

Funny bones or bone dry? Send your thoughts on mystery series to Hobo, at from_my_shelf@yahoo.com. Need a clue? Check the archives at Hobo’s blog, http://frommyshelf.blogspot.com.

No comments:

Post a Comment