Only a small pile of bones remained of a hiker who vanished in Washington State's Olympic National Park years ago - just enough for Gideon Oliver, the skeleton detective, to deduce that someone, or something, of superhuman strength had killed him. Now, a young woman has disappeared, and before Gideon can stop them, hundreds of people descend on the park looking for her - and Bigfoot.

[book id="1719" rating="4"]

I've only read one other Gideon Oliver book, and it's a much later entry in the series (Skullduggery), which I enjoyed. I wanted to start at the beginning but after a lot of research, everyone who has ever read the first book says it's not worth reading it, so I'm jumping in at #2.

I wasn't sure what to expect, and I didn't really read it with any particular HB square in mind. This was a really good story, and not at all the kind of story I expected. What starts off with 3 disappearances in the rainforest of Washington State leads to dead bodies, an unknown Amerind burial ground, and, for the first 60 pages, Bigfoot is a contender! So much fun!

The reality, as the story progresses, is much, much more interesting than Bigfoot (no offence meant), and this mystery becomes the most anthropological anthropology-mystery I've ever read. It's short - 200 pages - but concise and fast paced. Little is wasted on descriptive filler, although I'd have liked for the sex scenes not to have made the final edits. I'm fine with sex scenes in general, but in a cozy, written by a man, well, for some reason it just sort of squicked me out. But they really were the only unnecessary scenes and were pretty PG, for all I'm complaining about them.

Without giving anything away, it was just a really solid, well-written, mystery, with great characters and an even better setting.

I read this for Halloween Bingo 2022 and beyond the obvious Genre: Mystery square it also fits Amateur Sleuth, Cozy Mystery, Dem Bones, In the Dark, Dark Woods, Monsters, and The Barrens.

I'm going to use it for Monsters because, Bigfoot! :) ( )

Elkins has done it again, making science fascinating to the layman in the context of a good mystery. The resolution is warming, hopeful. Highly recommended. ( )

Elkins has done it again, making science fascinating to the layman in the context of a good mystery. The resolution is warming, hopeful. Highly recommended. ( )

mystery, myths-legends, anthropologist, romance****

I still like this one even after a number of years. I'd forgotten the romance novel stuff, but I was more than happy to reread all of the anthro. It was nice hearing about University of Wisconsin and Gideon's friends in anthropology and the FBI. The mystery was solid with good writing and problem solving.
Joel Richards did a nice job of narrating. ( )