Make No Bones, by Aaron Elkins

Retrieved from: my library
0892963786, 1991
Suggested by: My authors list
My Ratings: 9 Merit, 9 Interest, 9 Fun

Dr. Oliver goes on an awful lot of conferences where people end up dying. I can see why the FBI gets nervous when he calls.

In this story, he and his wife are attending a conference during which the organization holding the discussions is going to install the bones of one of the founders in its museum. That all goes swimmingly, except that immediately after the official museum unveiling, those bones are stolen. Soon thereafter, another skeleton is discovered.

There is much confusion, a great deal of discussion of dental records and blowfly population and a murder before everyone figures out that the original bones don't belong to the person everyone thought they did. This means that everything that follows, all the suppositions that have been made about the second skeleton and the murder are all wrong.

Good. Elkins has taken a big jump in skill here.