Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #268456 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-22
• Released on: 2007-07-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 272 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Forensic sleuth Gideon Oliver accompanies his second wife, Julie, to an unusual gathering of conservation experts in the Scilly Isles in Edgar-winner Elkins's engaging 13th whodunit to feature the man known as the "Bone Detective" (after 2005's Where There's a Will). Frustrated by his passive role and forced to bite his tongue when opinions are voiced that strike him as lacking intellectual rigor, Oliver leaps at a chance to examine some human remains stored at the local museum. His casual look becomes something more when he determines that one humerus bone is a recent relic, leading to his rousing the sleepy local constabulary to a murder probe. When the victim turns out to have belonged to the conservation group, the circle of suspects centers on the surviving members. Elkins excels in making his hero's skills plausible and accessible to a lay audience, though some readers might wish for more depth of characterization. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
A conference on the Isles of Scilly off the coast of Cornwall is the picturesque setting for Edgar-winning Elkins' latest forensic caper. His husband-wife team of Julie and Gideon Oliver (Julie, a supervising park ranger at Olympia National Park in Washington; Gideon, a forensic anthropologist) allows Elkins to do several things at once: get the couple invited to different venues; pack in enough local lore to function as a travel guide for readers; and provide two different perspectives on whatever bones Gideon stumbles across. This time, Julie has been invited to attend a biodiversity conference hosted by an eccentric Russian genius. Gideon pokes around the Neolithic sites and, not surprisingly, finds a contemporary tibia. While the local constabulary is denying that this can possibly be the result of foul play, a murder occurs at Star Castle, the site of the conference. Although the writing is precious at times, the forensic accuracy is admirable, and the plotting compelling. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Fantastic Feast for Forensic Fans
If you are a long-time fan of the Gideon Oliver series, you'll adore this book. If you haven't read any of the earlier books, you'll find Unnatural Selection to be a pleasant entry point to the series.

Gideon's forest ranger wife, Julie, is one of the stars at a conference hosted by an eccentric Russian, Vasily Kozlov, held in impressive Star Castle (a place you can visit for real in its incarnation as "St. Mary's premier restaurant-hotel"). Each of the stars has in common the lack of a Ph.D. which leaves Gideon sniffing suspiciously in the air. He hopes to avoid the conference as much as possible because he assumes that it will be mostly dreck, except for Julie's paper, of course.

Gideon receives an invitation to visit the local museum to look at odd bones that have washed up ashore. One of the bones disturbs Gideon . . . and he takes it over to the local constabulary. The head man there, Sergeant Clapper, isn't too impressed at first with Gideon's theories. But his junior Constable Robb wears Clapper down, and the investigation begins.

What follows is some remarkable research and writing about how you might discern the scene of a crime and the perpetrator after beginning with one bone. Anyone who enjoys the television shows about crime scene investigations will find this book to be quite rewarding.

There's also lots of humor at the expense of those who pretend to surround their opinions with the veneer of science while not having a proper approach in hand. The title itself indirectly refers to one of the "stars" who argues that hunting furthers natural selection. Gideon straightens him out -- it's unnatural selection because the more fit examples of the species are killed for their food and trophy value.

The book's main weakness is that determining the murderer is far too easy once the forensics have told their story. The solution is strongly hinted at even before that point.