There never seems to be a shortage of suspicious deaths, but Gideon Oliver only looks at cold cases—at bones in fact. He's an expert on skeletons, and SWITCHEROO is the eighteenth outing in the Gideon Oliver series. SWITCHEROO visits the Channel Islands off the coast of France to investigate a time-old theme of Nazi occupation.
We begin in the early part of the war, when Britain is conducting a swift and scant evacuation of the islands it's about to abandon. A wealthy father whose small, fragile son might not survive the hardships of occupation, persuades (with money) a family who have a ticket to leave, to swap their boy for his. The departing man lost his wife in the boy's birth, and his new wife is easily persuaded that their little sturdy boy will be well cared for. I've read about the occupation and the five years were filled with starvation and privation, for the German soldiers stationed in this non-combat zone as much as the locals.
In 1964 an untimely death is reported on Jersey, the largest island. A few years later, worse tragedy follows. Police preserve evidence without being able to resolve the crimes or identify the remains found in a tar pit. Then in 2015, Gideon Oliver, a professor of anthropology at the University of Washington, arrives. Gideon and his wife Julie are attending a conference in Malaga, Spain, when Gideon is invited to cast his eyes on the remains in nearby Jersey. Just a few day's outing, he thinks. Their friend Rafe is the son of one of the men suspected to be dead; he wants to know what happened to his father all those decades ago. Sadly their search for the truth is about to reopen old traumas and trigger a killing.
I've read a few of these stories by Aaron Elkins, and I enjoy that they are intelligent, quiet and very human, a murder scene removed from immediate violence and an unusual challenge for the amateur detective. We also get a look at the natural and historical surroundings. The maturity of the detective shines through each time. On Jersey, we meet old scandals and old rivalries; we see Jersey cow farming, the Gerald Durrell rare animal sanctuary, and offshore banking. We learn a lot about bones, as ever. Aaron Elkins visited Jersey and brings the details vividly to life in the wryly named SWITCHEROO, a treat for crime fans. Followers of this series will be delighted with the excursion.
A cold case dating
from the 1960s draws forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver
to the Channel Islands decades later to shine a light on
the
mysterious connection between two men who died there on the
same night.
Swapped as young boys by their fathers
during the Nazi occupation, wealthy Roddy Carlisle and
middle-class George Skinner had some readjusting to do
after
the war ended—but their lives remained linked through work,
trouble with the law, and finally, it would seem, through
murder.
Nobody expects that Gideon’s modern-day
investigation will turn up fresh bodies. But old bones tell
many tales, and the Skeleton Detective has to be at his
sharpest to piece together the truth before the body count
mounts still higher.
Declared “a series that never
disappoints” by the Philadelphia Inquirer, the
Gideon
Oliver mystery series is highly recommended for fans of
Agatha Christie and Kathy Reichs.
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