Icy Clutches

Aaron Elkins

Apr 2014 · The Gideon Oliver Mysteries Book 6 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

Edgar Award–winning series: On a trip to Glacier Bay, Alaska, the Skeleton Detective pursues a cold-hearted killer who buries evidence in an avalanche.

Gideon Oliver expects to be amicably bored when he takes on the role of “accompanying spouse” at a lodge in the magnificent wild country of Glacier Bay, Alaska, where his forest ranger wife, Julie, is attending a conference. But it turns out to be exactly his cup of tea. There is another group at the lodge: six scientists on a memorial journey to the site of a thirty‐year‐old glacial avalanche that killed three of their colleagues. Their leader is TV’s most popular science personality, the unctuous M. Audley Tremaine, who is the sole survivor of the fatal avalanche. But he does not survive long and is soon found hanged in his room. If that is not upsetting enough, shocked hikers discover human bones emerging from the foot of the glacier—are they the shattered remains of the three who died, finally seeing daylight after their two‐mile, three‐decade journey within the glacial flow?

When the FBI seeks expert help, everyone agrees how fortunate it is that Dr. Oliver, the famed Skeleton Detective, is on the scene. Everybody, that is, but the person who wants ancient history to stay that way—and who believes that murder is the surest way to keep the past buried.

Icy Clutches is the 6th book in the Gideon Oliver Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Ratings and reviews

I think this is my favorite in the series so far. It was well paced and kept me interested the entire story. I didn't figure out the culprit until towards the end. I like the main characters of Gideon, Julie and John. The story specific characters were all rather annoying, particularly Tremaine, who was a completely unlikable creation. I've always wanted to visit the inside passage and see Glacier Bay. This just reinforced that. I'm also curious to visit Juneau. It's got a milder climate than Fargo despite being considerably farther north. It appears to have grown considerably since this was written, but still sounds like a great place to see. There was one quote that bothered me, where it was stated that the average depth of San Francisco Bay was only 3 feet. It's much more than that, at a little over 3 meters. The eBook was formatted fairly well, but had some line break issues and misplaced punctuation.

Scientific exploration meets an avalanche in Alaska. One of four comes out alive? And thirty years later writes a tell-tale book about it. When he is murdered, Gideon Oliver must go back to 1960 to discover the true murderer.

About the author

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.