Aaron Elkins

Author Information
Aaron Elkins's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    25 Books (3 Series)
  • First Book:
    October 1982
  • Latest Book:
    August 2018
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About the Author

Aaron Elkins is the creator of modern forensic mystery, having pioneered the genre in 1982 with Fellowship of Fear, introducing the Skeleton Detective, Gideon Oliver. Among his awards are best-novel Edgar and Nero Wolfe Award. He and his wife Charlotte hold a jointly awarded Agatha. Aaron's books are translated into a major ABC-TV series and have been selections of the Book-of-the-Month Club, the Literary Guild, and Readers Digest Condensed Mystery Series. His work has been published in over a dozen languages. Aaron speaks at conferences, been a frequent contributor to the New York Times' travel magazine, written for Smithsonian magazine, and author of several short stories and numerous articles on the craft of writing. Aaron and Charlotte live on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. He keeps his hand in the forensic game by serving as the forensic anthropologist for the Clallam County Cold Case Task Force

Full Series List in Order

Ben Revere

1 - Loot (Feb-1999)

A Chris Norgren Mystery

1 - A Deceptive Clarity (1987)
2 - A Glancing Light (May-1991)
3 - Old Scores (May-1993)

A Gideon Oliver Mystery

1 - Fellowship of Fear (Oct-1982)
2 - Dark Place (1983)
3 - Murder in the Queen's Armes (Oct-1985)
4 - Old Bones (1987)
5 - Curses! (Feb-1989)
6 - Icy Clutches (1990)
7 - Make No Bones (1991)
8 - Dead Men's Hearts (1994)
9 - Twenty Blue Devils (Jan-1997)
10 - Skeleton Dance (Apr-2000)
11 - Good Blood (Feb-2004)
12 - Where There's A Will (Apr-2005)
13 - Unnatural Selection (Jun-2006)
14 - Little Tiny Teeth (Jun-2007)
15 - Uneasy Relations (Jul-2008)
16 - Skull Duggery (Sep-2009)
17 - Dying on the Vine (Dec-2012)
18 - Switcheroo (Feb-2016)

Book List in Order: 25 titles

  • Fellowship of Fear

    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 1

    Meet Professor Gideon Oliver, full-time anthropologist, part-time detective, and brand-new visiting fellow at Heidelberg University. Even though the two previous occupants of his chair both died under mysterious circumstances, he's eagerly looking fo...

  • Dark Place

    • / Law Enforcement
    • Buy Buy
    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 2

    SAVAGE HUNGER Deep in the primeval rain forests of Washington State, the body of a brutally murdered man is discovered. And a chilling mystery unfolds. Could the spear that killed him really be identical to one used by primitive hunters ten tho...

  • Murder in the Queen's Armes

    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 3

    SKULLDUGGERY... Why would anyone steal a thirty-thousand-year-old skull? England's famous Poundbury Man has been swiped right from its museum case, and anthropologist Gideon Oliver, honeymooning in Britain with his new bride, Julie, finds the myst...

  • A Deceptive Clarity

    • / Amateur Sleuth
    • Buy Buy
    A Chris Norgren Mystery - 1

    Chris Norgren--museum curator and Renaissance art expert--heads to Berlin to help mount a sensational exhibit: twenty priceless Old Masters, once thought to be lost forever, and recently found by U.S. forces. But the occasion turns chilling when:Chri...

  • Old Bones

    • / Law Enforcement
    • Buy Buy
    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 4

    When the treacherous tides of Mont St. Michel claim the aged patriarch of the du Rocher family, the authorities accept the verdict of "accidental drowning." But the unfortunate event is followed too quickly by a strange discovery: the discovery of a ...

  • Curses!

    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 5

    STICKS AND STONES...AND BONES Mayan ruins in the Yucatan ... a secret room in a tomb ... an ancient skeleton. To Gideon Oliver, anthropologist, this archaeological find is paradise on earth. He and his wife, Julie, have joined his old mentor, Abe ...

  • Icy Clutches

    • / Law Enforcement
    • Buy Buy
    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 6

    STONE COLD DEAD A few pieces of bone rest in the tomato soup carton--all that is left of three young people who perished in an avalanche thirty years ago near Alaska's Glacier Bay. Gideon Oliver expects to be bored when he accompanies his wife, Ju...

  • Make No Bones

    • / Law Enforcement
    • Buy Buy
    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 7

    A RAG AND A BONE...AND A MURDER Not much was left of Dr. Albert Jasper. His jaw bone and a few charred bits were installed in a place of honor in an Oregon museum to create a fascinating, if macabre, exhibit. It was a fitting end for a great foren...

  • A Glancing Light

    A Chris Norgren Mystery - 2

    Mild-mannered and law-abiding, Chris Norgren, curator of Renaissance and Baroque art for a Seattle museum, is an unlikely undercover investigator, but when a priceless stolen-masterpiece is discovered in a shipment of reproductions, Chris reluctantly...



  • Old Scores

    A Chris Norgren Mystery - 3

    "A fascinating glimpse into the hidden world of tense auctions, suspected forgeries and internecine feuds." St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    The art world is abuzz with news of the discovery of an unknown Rembrandt. Rene Vachey, the famed collector who mad...

  • Dead Men's Hearts

    • / Law Enforcement
    • Buy Buy
    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 8

    MYSTERY'S IN HIS BONES A skeleton tossed on an Egyptian garbage dump is the first mystery to rattle Gideon Oliver as he arrives in the famous Valley of the Nile. There to appear in a documentary film, Gideon and his wife, Julie, expect a luxurious...

  • Twenty Blue Devils

    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 9

    REMAINS OF THE COFFEE MAN Gideon Oliver, the Skeleton Detective, is in Tahiti for a case that is not exactly his cup of... well, tea. After two close calls, an "accident" has killed the manager of the Paradise Coffee plantation. producer of the wo...

  • Loot

    Ben Revere - 1

    April 1945: In the last convulsive days of World War II a convoy of Nazi trucks loaded with Europe's greatest art treasures winds its way through the Alps toward a cavernous Austrian salt mine. With the Allies closing in and chaos erupting, a single ...

  • Skeleton Dance

    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 10

    There is a small village in France that is well known for pate de foie gras ... and bones. Boasting the largest concentration of prehistoric fossils in Europe, Les Eyzies-de Tayac is the home of the prestigious Institut de Prehistoire where eminent s...

  • Turncoat

    Pete Simon's All-American life fell apart in the days following the assassination of John F. Kennedy... It begins with the appearance of a stranger at his door--an unwelcome visitor ranting madly about money, death, and forgiveness; a man known al...

  • Good Blood

    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 11

    Soaking up the sun on their friend's idyllic island in Lake Maggiore, Gideon and his wife soon learn that the breathtaking view and sumptuous food come at a price. The padrone's only child has been kidnapped. And when nearby construction workers unea...

  • Where There's A Will

    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 12

    Rancher Alex Torkelsson has just gotten word: after going missing ten years ago, Alex's late uncle Magnus's plane has been found south of Hawaii's Big Island. So too have Magnus's few skeletal remains, now handed over to the only man who can fit toge...

  • Unnatural Selection

    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 13

    When Gideon Oliver's wife Julie attends a conservation forum on the emerald Isles of Scilly, Gideon tags along, expecting a holiday. To amuse himself, he explores the Neolithic sites there. But instead of ancient ruins, he finds evidence of a very re...

  • Little Tiny Teeth

    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 14

    Aaron Elkins is back with more skullduggery for forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver, the Skeleton Detective. Oliver journeys to the untamed South American rain forest, where his latest find may prove to be his last... Tagging along on an Amazon ...



  • Uneasy Relations

    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 15

    Buried ceremoniously, high in a cave on the Rock of Gibraltar, lies the skeleton of a human woman, clutching the skeleton of a part-human, part-Neanderthal child. Fascinated, Professor Oliver jumps at the chance to visit the site. But two deaths, pos...

  • Skull Duggery

    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 16

    No one solves crimes like Skeleton Detective Gideon Oliver. Gideon and his wife are on vacation in Mexico when a local police chief requests his assistance on a case. A mummified corpse was discovered in the desert and the coroner believed the vic...

  • The Worst Thing

    For Bryan Bennett, designing hostage negotiation programs is the perfect job -- as long as he doesn’t deal directly with kidnappers or their victims. Intense nightmares of his own abduction and imprisonment as a small boy still plague him thirty-so...

  • Dying on the Vine

    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 17

    Edgar® Award-winning author Aaron Elkins’s creation -- forensics professor Gideon Oliver -- has been hailed by the Chicago Tribune as “a likable, down-to-earth, cerebral sleuth.” Now, the celebrated Skeleton Detective is visiting friends at a ...

  • Switcheroo

    A Gideon Oliver Mystery - 18

    The Skeleton Detective is back. 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. S...

  • A Long Time Coming

    It takes a real artist to solve a crime this big -- in a brilliant, engrossing mystery by Edgar Award winner Aaron Elkins… Art curator Val Caruso is not a happy camper. His promotion has just been nixed, his divorce has become final, and he’s ...

Award-Winning Books by Aaron Elkins

Old Bones
1988 Edgar Allan Poe Award -- Novel
Old Scores
1994 Nero Wolfe Award -- Novel


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Aaron Elkins has published 25 books.

Aaron Elkins does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, A Long Time Coming, was published in August 2018.

The first book by Aaron Elkins, Fellowship of Fear, was published in October 1982.

Yes. Aaron Elkins has 3 series.
Pseudonyms / Co-Author
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