"Before the sun set on the last Neanderthal around 25,000 years ago, was he living peacefully with his smarter, handsomer cousin the Homo sapiens? Or did the two always fight? Anthropologists and Paleolithic archaeologists debated these questions for years. Then a spectacular find at the Rock of Gibraltar left everyone speechless ...

"Buried ceremoniously in a cave, the skeleton of a human woman lies clutching to her breast the skeleton of a part-Neanderthal child. Like much of the world, Professor Oliver finds Gibraltar Woman and Gibraltar Boy fascinating -- and jumps at the chance to attend a conference celebrating the anniversary of the discovery.

"But not everyone's in a festive mood. Death has been stalking the excavation site like an ancient curse, rocking Gibraltar. A woman working on the original dig met her end in a landslide. A famous archaeologist at the conference burns to death in his bed. Despite the certainty of the Royal Gibraltar Police force that the two deaths were accidents, Gideon has his suspicions.

"As he tries to piece things together, Gideon's in for some nasty surprises. Someone has set his sights on the Skeleton Detective, who's about to fall for a few deadly tricks. After all, unlike Gibraltar Boy, he's only human ...
~~front flap

One of the better books in this series, imho. That opinion is based on the subject matter, H. sap sap vis-a-vis H. Neanderthalensis. So much we don't know and so much more we now know than we did even a decade ago. It's now known that the Rock of Gibraltar was probably the last refuge area for Neanderthals (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...), so the purported paleoarchaeological find that's the subject of this mystery is intriguing.

And of course there's the usual fresh array of wonderful characters: Ivan S. Gunderson, a self-made millionaire and amateur, self-taught archaeologist who owned the Europa Point Cave site, conducted a dig with mediocre results and then gifted the site to the Horizon Foundation for Anthropological Research, which also dug the site, and discovered the First Family. Gunderson is now in his 90s and is slowly succumbing to Alzheimer's.

And then there's Fausto Sotomayor, Detective Chief Inspector of the Royal Gibraltar Police force. "Independently wealthy, no more than five feet five, quick-moving and quick-talking, rail-thin, with small (even for his size) hands (fingernails buffed and manicured) and feet (toenails buffed and pedicured?), he dressed in silk shirts and trim, expensive, perfectly tailored suits, and exuded a lithe, oddly graceful cockiness -- Jimmy Cagney with a Latin accent -- that clearly set the teeth of his bigger, slower, less fashion-conscious colleagues on edge." What a grand creation!

As usual, our Gideon's life is quickly in danger, and no one can figure out why. And after a murder or two of other archaeologists at the conference, it begins to look more and more serious. And also as usual, Gideon is up to his neck in solving the mystery. It's an exciting adventure -- you'll enjoy it. ( )

I liked the Rock of Gibraltor setting and the focus on famous anthropological frauds. The mystery was okay, but not the reason to read the book. ( )

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah! Another fun rmop with Dr. Gideon Oliver, skeleton detective! These are such enjoyable Summer mystery reads! Intelligent and interesting, lovely characterizations.
Criticisms: This one was harder to get into than the last, Little Tiny Teeth, more confusing academic characters. This time I could not absorb the "sense of place" of the Rock of Gibraltar as I have in most of Elkin's other novels.
Compliments/Pros: Once it got off running on the actual examining of bones and murders, it was delicious and took off running and I could not put it down. Very good twisty satisfying mystery! Well done as usual, did not disappoint!! ( )

Gideon Oliver is returning to Gibraltar for a reunion of those who worked on the Gibraltar Woman excavation five years earlier. Journalists have taken remarks intended for pun as truth and have stated that Gideon will be talking about something of greater import to anthropology fraud than Piltdown Man. It's not long before there are a couple of possible attempts on Gideon's life -- or were they just accidents? Two years earlier, one of their colleagues, died in a landslide on the site of their original dig cave. Another member of the group is soon dead. Gideon must convince Gibraltar's chief inspector that a crime has been committed, but it's Gideon's knowledge of forensic anthropology that will solve the case. It took me awhile to become engaged, but once the focus of the book was more on the mystery and less on anthropology with scientific discussions in the mix, I was able to care more about investigation. I have never read earlier installments in the series, and this was the 15th, so it is possible that I might have enjoyed the first part more if I'd had a better knowledge of the main characters. I do think that it works reasonably well as a stand-alone as most of the characters were developed sufficiently in the book. ( )

Nice. Lots of echos of other books - yet again Gideon goes to a conference of academics (archaeologists, mostly, this time) with whom he was previously involved, and discovers previous and current murders and is himself threatened. The reason is...well, reasonable, given the characters involved, though it's not obvious despite the pointing out of the salient characteristics several times early on in the book. Oh, and another police officer takes John's place, down to the venting over Gideon's 'explanations' - and thinking about that, I discovered for the first time the pun in John's name (John Lau/Law!). Neat, fun, good characters, exciting climax - interesting echo of Gideon's first adventure in Fellowship of Fear (minor point but a familiar defensive/offensive move!). And a little more about Julie and Gideon as people. Nice book - this one I'll reread, I'm sure.
Oh, _funny_. So yes, I reread it - without remembering, at any point, that I had ever read it before. It has been years, but still. It's a good standard Skeleton Detective story...you'd have thought I would have remembered the Gibraltar setting, at least. Not a clue. ( )