Chris Norgren, museum curator and Renaissance art expert, heads to
Berlin to assist in mounting a sensational exhibit: The Plundered
Past-twenty priceless Old Masters looted by the Nazis, thought for
decades to be lost forever, and only recently rediscovered. But things
quickly get out of hand when Chris's patrician, fastidious boss, after
smelling a forgery in the lot, turns up dead the very next day-on the
steps of a dismal Frankfurt brothel, of all places. Now Chris faces two
daunting tasks: finding a fake painting among the masterpieces and a
real killer whose sights are now set on him. Aaron Elkins is a former
anthropologist and professor who has been writing mysteries and
thrillers since 1982. His major continuing series features forensic
anthropologist-detective Gideon Oliver, "the Skeleton Detective." There
are fifteen published titles to date in the series. The Gideon Oliver
books have been (roughly) translated into a major ABC-TV series and have
been selections of the Book-of-the-Month Club, the Literary Guild, and
the Readers Digest Condensed Mystery Series. His work has been published
in a dozen languages. Mr. Elkins won the 1988 Edgar Award for best
mystery of the year for Old Bones, the fourth book in the Gideon Oliver
Series. He and his cowriter and wife, Charlotte, also won an Agatha
Award, and he has also won a Nero Wolfe Award. Mr. Elkins lives on
Washington's Olympic Peninsula with Charlotte.
