Mild-mannered and law-abiding, Chris Norgren, curator of Renaissance and
Baroque art at the Seattle Art Museum, is an unlikely undercover
investigator, but when a priceless Rubens portrait is discovered in a
shipment of "authentic reproductions" in a local warehouse, Chris is
pressed into service to find out how it got there. The quest leads him
to the medieval city of Bologna, one of his favorite places, but all too
soon what might have been a welcome Italian interlude turns into a
bizarre journey into shady art world doings and murderous secrets . . .
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.
