Mystery and nature, good solid mystery. Too much romance, I'll be glad when the doc gets married!

This wasn't the first Gideon Oliver mystery I have read, but it just might be the last. I remember fondly how, years ago, I used to be able to read and re-read the few, carefully guarded Gideon Oliver mysteries I owned. I got them all from second-hand bookstores and, long before I ordered anything from BN.COM, I didn't know how to get my hands on any more.

When I remembered this author and, finally order the second book in the series (having read the first a couple years ago) I was really looking forward to reading it. The plot synopsis on the back cover sounded so good too, making me really excited to read it.

Honestly, the best that I can say about it is: thank heaven it is short. The mystery was boring and unpleasant, leaving me deducing much of the solution long before our intrepid detective did. Adding the Yahi, while sounding so cool, was really not handled well. And the suspects were very few and far between. In fact, I only recall truly thinking of two of the characters as a 'suspect'. And one of them was the guilty party. Made painfully obvious to me long before anyone else came up with it.

To me this was really more of a thriller than a mystery novel, with Gideon's escapades and, rather distinct, lack of intelligence he portrayed.

In all truthfulness, my dislike of this book could stem more from the vastly different books I like reading now than what I used to. I cannot be sure but I think it is time to re-read a few of my formerly loved authors and see.

I liked this one much more than I liked the first one. There was more anthropology in this one, though the MC is still very fond of big latin words. Though, who the murderer turned out to be seems very unlikely to me but at least the author didn't go very far with the bigfoot angle.

Gideon called in by FBI John Lau when some remains are found in a national park. He meets Julie, a park ranger, who also happened to study his work in college and is a fan. Crush at first sight for both. It's been 3 years since Gideon's wife died so he's interested.

Hikers have been going missing for years near an old abandoned trail. Latest victim is a young woman. Gideon puts theory that there is a lost tribe, which there is. Turns out old guy who was shot and maimed when he was a papoose was the killer. Young guy was a native writing his dissertation and he became part of the tribe to teach them the old ways. (they had been living like scavengers) Julie and Gideon allow the other 4 to go away after old one dies while attacking Gideon.

Julie and Gideon to marry. Good, interesting. Love that he's the skeleton detective.

Even though not too much happens in this book, the story moves along at a really good pace, and you don't notice that not too much is happening because the suspense builds through to the end. Gideon Oliver is an interesting character, for sure--the prototype, in a way, for Kathy Reich's Temperance Brennan--and it's fun to read about this adventures. It is, however, a product of its time I think, in the sense that there are some scenes that read incredibly badly with the hindsight of what we know now. There's some "white saviorhood" in this one, and some less-than-acceptable ideas regarding "primitive cultures" that really don't stand the test of time. Gideon's ideas of romance are also really cringe-inducing to today's modern ears, but overall the plot holds up relatively well.

I'd read several Skeleton Detective stories, at random. I've decided to start at the beginning with those that I have missed.

This one had the necessary element of introducing an additional, to be repeated, character.

I, at first, thought that the premise of this story was a bit farfetched. To my surprise, after doing some research, I found that it is inspired by an actual incident and existing wet, wet, wet location.