DEAD MEN'S HEARTS

Mysterious Press, 1994

A role in a documentary film brings Gideon Oliver to Egypt's famed Valley of the Nile, where he expects an undemanding week of movie-star treatment and a top-of-the-line river cruise with his wife Julie. But a skeleton unexpectedly turns up in the garbage dump at the Egyptological Institute where the filming starts. The bones, Gideon determines, are those of an anonymous Fifth Dynasty scribe who has been uneventfully gathering dust in a storeroom since being excavated seventy years earlier. These venerable relics are cleaned, sorted, analyzed and placed back in storage with all due respect.

Sifting through bones is nothing new for the man known as the Skeleton Detective, but wandering skeletons are out of the ordinary. So when the same remains inexplicably wind up in another garbage heap a few days later÷days during which a staff member has died under highly suspicious circumstances÷Gideon hauls out his calipers for a second, longer look.

What he discovers will send him and Julie through the bazaars and back alleys of modern Egypt and deep into the ancient, fabled Valley of the Kings. As the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, Gideon will find that the identifying traits of a cunning killer are timeless: greed without guilt, lies without conscience . . . and murder without remorse.

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--The Los Angeles Daily News

"Bright, breezy, witty writing, a winning plot, a remarkably appealing hero, uproariously funny dialogue, and an exotic setting . . . one of (Gideon's) oddest and most deadly adventures."

--Booklist

"Elkins once again exhibits his uncanny ability to make forensic research exciting."

--The Chicago Sun-Times

"The author's wryly literate style . . . captures the color, danger, and ancient glories of the Egyptian scene."

-Kirkus Reviews

"Engaging . . . Gideon remains charming and eccentric, especially with a dusty bone in his hand or his beloved Julie nearby."

--Publishers Weekly