Aaron Elkins, Where There's a Will

Where There's a Will

Aaron Elkins

Berkley, Apr 2005, $23.95, 288 pp.

ISBN: 0425200264

In 1994, wealthy Magnus Torkelsson is fleeing for his life trying to reach remote Tarabao Island in the Hawaiian chain. However, the bad weather hinders visibility and soon the small plane runs out of gas. Magnus and his pilot, Texas transplant Claudia, crash into the sea.

A decade later, divers in a lagoon 400 miles off the Big island of Hawaii find a plane with two skeletons inside. At the same time that Magnus' family learn that his remains have been found, University of Washington at Port Angeles Physical Anthropology Professor Gideon Oliver has attended an anthropology forensics conference and is heading to the ranch of his best friend FBI Agent John Lau. John asks Gideon to look at the evidence, but soon the mainlander begins to unravel a family filled with lies and avarice in which not only was Magnus killed by at least one heir, but his sibling may have been a murder victim too.

Aaron Elkins provides a fabulous "A"-quality-level, forensic investigative tale in which the author freshens up the actions of his champion Gideon by temporarily relocating him to Hawaii and not always the main islands. Fans not only see up front the Hawaiian archipelago, but also are engrossed in a mystery that at first does not seem like a homicide, but more an accident. Readers will enjoy this first-rate who-done-it as the cast and the locale make for a fine, tropical mystery.

Harriet Klausner