Where There's a Will (A Gideon Oliver Mystery)

Aaron Elkins is one of the few mystery writers I buy in hardbound rather than waiting a year for the paper back version. My five stars means this novel is consistent with his best. Wherever Gideon Oliver, forensic anthropologist at the Universiry of Washington at Port Angeles travels, it seems inevitable that bones long detached from their original owner will appear. In Where There's A Will, Oliver is vacationing with a friend from the FBI after the two of them have lectured at a conference on Oahu. They spend their time at a ranch inherited not too many years ago by one of four siblings, the inheritance only becoming final after their uncle had been missing long enough to be declared dead. Shortly after his arrival, the uncle's crashed plane is located at an uninhabited atoll in the South pacific. Oliver agrees to help with the recovery, although warning his hosts that recovery of identifiable bones after so many years' immersion in the ocean is unlikely. In the event, they do discover a man's boot which had sheltered and protected ankle and foot bones, from which Oliver is able to make a positive identification. Difficulties arise, however, when his positive identification seems to match, not the missing man, but another uncle murdered at the time of the disappearance and whose autoposy report clearly confirms the same identifying characterstic of missing toes. Since the identity of the last uncle to die will determine whether the valuable estate passes to the current generation or to a nonprofit organization, tensions rise as Elkins' well-meaning willingness to help has now thrown the economic well-being of four individuals into jeopardy. From there, forensic anthopology blend with the ballistics expertise of Oliver's FBI friend to lead to new theories of the two deaths, sibling tensions increase, and Oliver finally uncovers an overlooked clue that brings everyting together. Elkins uses science to produce convincing explanations without becoming too technical for the lay reader like me. He writes lucidly and his myseteries alway entertain

It's always fun to have another Gideon Oliver novel to read, and this one is no exception. While it's not a great book, it's a good book: a fun read, with the snappy dialogue one expects from Elkins. I personally like the Gideon Oliver series better than Elkins' other series. Since much of the plot has been discussed in other reviews, I'll just point out a few things I particularly liked about this volume: *the details of the family ranching business in Hawaii - including the reference to using Japanese quarter horses. (I'll let you discover that breed :D) *the resemblance of the family of Swedish sailors-turned-ranchers to the "Norwegian bachelor farmers" that Garrison Keillor talks about on his radio show *the running jokes about the terrible coffee one gets in police stations One of the things that people look for, in mystery series, is whether there is continuity in the background lives of the characters. This is one of the series where there is such continuity; however, it's not real-time. Our protagonist and his family and friends have aged about a decade, in the nearly 25 years that the series has been running. This is a reasonable pace, that allows us to follow their lives. Even though this is a series, though, this particular book could be read and enjoyed without having read other books in the series - there are no points here where a reader would be bewildered because they didn't have some background knowledge. It's more fun, though, if you do read the whole series, so you can get more enjoyment out of the exchanges between Oliver and Lau, and you know more about Oliver's wife, and so on. So go ahead and get this one and read it, but get a couple of the older books, too - I promise you'll enjoy them. Probably "Old Bones" and "Twenty Blue Devils" would be the two that would provide you with the most background for the buck, especially since "Twenty" takes place in Tahiti, thus giving the reader some additional background for the South Pacific setting of "Where There's a Will." Family reading alert: this is a great series for kids who are reading at adult levels but don't need to be exposed to too much in the way of adult themes - there's no explicit sex, very little that anyone would consider bad language, and no excessive gore or violence. I was reading books from the grown-up area of the library by the time I was 12 (which was considerably before this series started) so I know it can be difficult for the parents of gifted kids to find stuff that is safe yet not childishly boring. Elkins' books fit the bill.

I thought Aaron Elkins kind of dialed this one in. There just wasn't the depth of character or plot development that characterized earlier books in the Gideon Oliver series. In fact, the scenario regarding how Gideon Oliver got involved with the case (bones found in the remains of a plane crash--can he confirm they are the missing family members from ten years before) was remarkably like the device used in a previous book. Nevertheless, it was a diverting and pleasant read. Just not particularly riveting, and not up to the early novels in the series.

I started off my review of Aaron Elkins's last book, _Good Blood_, by calling him the finest writer of "classical" mysteries out there. That hasn't changed--and _Where There's a Will_ is one of his better books. I can give it no higher praise than this: I am a *very* old hand at reading mysteries, and Elkins managed to fool me . . . TWICE. In a couple of ways, _Where There's a Will_ is typical of the Gideon Oliver books. It's cerebral, not action-oriented. The characterization is engaging rather than heavy-handed. Devotees of gumshoe thrillers or psychological pieces probably won't find this book appealing. Those who adore the traditional mystery, though, couldn't ask for better. If you've never read an Oliver book before, this is a fine place to start. All the good stuff I expect in a Gideon Oliver book is there. There's a great exotic setting. There are some fascinating forensic esoterica. Gideon and John Lau are tremendously appealing characters; if they were real, I'd invite them over for dinner. There's a nice cast of suspects. The writing is fluid, with a deft comic touch. My only quibble is that I'd have liked Gideon and John to have had sole credit for solving the case. As it is, they solve it in parallel with the local police. Other than that--surely a purist's nitpick--I can't think of any other substantive comment on the book, other than to say: read it. Aaron Elkins should be at the absolute top of the heap among best-selling mystery writers; he's far better than some of the big names out there. Write more, Mr. Elkins!

In 1994, wealthy Magnus Torkelsson is fleeing for his life trying to reach remote Tarabao Island in the Hawaiian chain. However, the bad weather hinders visibility and soon the small plane runs out of gas. Magnus and his pilot Texas transplant Claudia crash into the sea. A decade later, divers in a lagoon 400 miles off the Big island of Hawaii find a plane with two skeletons inside. At the same time Magnus' family learn that his remains have been found, University of Washington at Port Angeles Physical Anthropology Professor Gideon Oliver has attended an anthropology forensics conference and is heading to the ranch of his best friend FBI Agent John Lau. John asks Gideon to look at the evidence, but soon the mainlander begins to unravel a family filled with lies and avarice in which not only was Magnus killed by at least one heir, but his sibling may have been a murder victim too. Aaron Elkins provides a fabulous "A" quality level forensic investigative tale in which the author freshens up the actions of his champion Gideon by temporarily relocating him to Hawaii and not always the main islands. Fans not only see up front the Hawaiian archipelago, but also are engrossed in a mystery that at first does not seem like a homicide, but more an accident. Readers will enjoy this first rate who-done-it as the cast and the locale make for a fine tropical mystery. Harriet Klausner