Fellowship of Fear

I have never found this in print at a reasonable price - all the others I have. When it popped up in my eReaderIQ notifications, I grabbed it quickly. It's the first Gideon Oliver book and is very different in tone to the others in the series. Gideon is hired as a visiting lecturer to the US forces in Europe and mysterious things happen as he travels around various bases. The anthropological osteology background is alluded to, but doesn't form the centrepiece to the story like the rest of the series. It reads more like a Cold War thriller - which in fact it is. The mysterious events are linked to a spy ring and Gideon is caught between the spies, and two lots of counter spies.

I would say it's for completists - the series is completely show more different after this one, so if you like those, you probably won't like this. show less

Before Kathy Reichs’ Tempe Brennan and television shows like Bones, there was Aaaron Elkins’ Gideon Oliver, physical anthropology professor.

Fellowship of Fear is the first of Gideon’s adventures (currently sixteen books). Published in 1982, it draws its tension from the cold war between Russia and the U.S.

Recently widowed, Gideon has taken a leave from Northern California State University to take on a stint teaching at the United States Overseas College (“bringing college courses to Our Boys in Europe”). His travels take him to Heidelburg in Germany, Sicily, and Madrid.

Unknowingly set up to act as the mule for classified army information, Gideon is set upon by thieves, and nearly killed in an automobile accident and its show more aftermath. This draws the attention of the Security Police who assign officer John Lau to work with Gideon and protect him.

Gideon is able to win John’s confidence by looking at some charred bones – a tibia and a jaw bone – and accurately determining the height & weight and the age & nationality of the deceased – and that he was left-handed and smoked a pipe (honest).

Gideon is a likeable character, although not a saint. John Lau takes the reader a little longer to warm up to, but that also reflects Gideon’s experience with the relationship.

Although I greatly enjoy the detective work in Kathy Reichs’ work, the tension created by a stalking serial killer is a little too “thrilling” for me. This book, centering on “who’s the Russian spy?”, allowed me to enjoy the forensic work at a tension level I can tolerate. In fact, I more than tolerated: I really liked this book and will probably read at least another in the series. show less

FELLOWSHIP OF FEAR is the first Gideon Oliver novel and it's totally delightful.

Oliver is all excited that his stint as a visiting fellow will enable him to visit Europe for the first time. Suddenly, he's enmeshed in an international spy chase and being attacked by masked strangers and saved by equally mysterious strangers and he discovers that both previous visiting fellows met an untimely end.

Thus is Gideon Oliver's career as a criminal investigator par excellence born. Bewildered by almost everything outside his professional scope, amazingly uncanny about anything related to his profession, he's a beguiling and likeable lead character. I look forward to reading lots more of the series.

Yep, guy lit to be polite. Anthropologist who can tell the race and age of a person from a jaw segment, has a number of violent encounters within a few days of arriving in Europe as a USOC guest lecturer. He finds enthusiastic female company in spite of dissing her feminism. All of the mid-20th century male self congratulation I prefer not to encounter. The plot is a mess of red herrings on a bed of confusion.

I wanted to read the first Gideon Oliver again. It's not bad, though the skeletal study is a very small part of the story - more action than thought. And Gideon is a serious idiot a couple times - mostly when he's trying to be a clever spy. But the scene where his identification of the missing man is confirmed is absolutely gorgeous. And I didn't catch the pun in John's name until years after I started reading the series - it's lovely, I'm just surprised Gideon never comments on it.

An oldie but the beginner of a fine series (the others keep getting better). Introducing Gideon Oliver, a professor with a tendency to talk over everyone's head but knows his stuff and gets the job done. This story is more of a "deadly spies who are buffoons" than a murder mystery and is set in Europe rather than the Pacific northwest, but the characters are interesting and so is the plot. Besides, it was on sale!
Joel Richards is convincing as the narrator.

"How can a professor of physical anthropology draw upon his special knowledge to find the solution of a mystery that is putting his own life in jeopardy? Professor Gideon Oliver certainly doesn't ask himself that question when he arrives in Heidelberg for a stint as visiting lecturer at the United States Overseas College. Pleasurable excitement is his main emotion; he is visiting abroad for the first time and he hopes the appointment will help him overcome the depression caused by the death of his beloved young wife the year before.

"When on his first evening in the German university city, Gideon is set upon as he returns to his hotel room, he is able to use his knowledge of national speech patterns to add to the police's description of show more his assailants. And when, in Itlay, he is brutally ambushed and barely escapes being killed, he determines to take an active part in discovering why he is inexplicably being followed, spied upon, robbed and attacked.

"Gideon and U.S. security office John Lau, assigned to his 'case,' take to one another immediately. When Gideon is able, from a handful of charred bones and a few teeth, to describe and identify the person whose sparse remains are found in a car connected with the attack on him, Lau realizes his value as a fellow investigator. Together, he and Gideon painstakingly search for the source of the danger that follows Gideon to Italy and Spain and waits for him when he returns to Heidelberg. And often Gideon's academic expertise pays off in a practical way.

"Not everything that Gideon finds awaiting him in Heidelberg, however, is unpleasant. Thee also is attractive, and very receptive, Janet Feller, a senior staff ember at the college and the first woman to interest Gideon seriously since his wife's death. In a final breathstopping climax, Janet's life is endangered, and Gideon performs the final feat of anthropological detection to uncover the person at the center of it all."

I've read several of these books before, but have now acquired all of the series and decided to reread the first books before plunging into the newer ones. And am I glad I did! I knew I liked the series (after all, it is forensic anthropology) but had forgotten how much I like them. What a joy they all are, and this first one hit the ground running. I finished it in a day and am now plunged into the second book and anticipate a smashing good read through them all. show less