Little Tiny Teeth by Aaron Elkins

From the Publisher

A new mystery to chill the bones-from the Edgar(r) Award-winning author of Unnatural Selection.

When forensics professor Gideon Oliver joins an Amazon riverboat expedition with a group of research botanists, he expects a nice vacation. What he gets is heat, corrupt officials, dangerous insects and animals-and worse.

As they travel upriver, one of the botanists is killed by a deranged passenger who leaps overboard and flees into the darkness. No one can explain why. Theories begin to simmer, and stories of long-past, half-forgotten grudges-and new ones as well-boil to the surface.

Only when a fresh skeleton turns up in the river, scoured to the bone by voracious piranhas, does Gideon realize that in this jungle full of predators, humans may be the deadliest of all.

Publishers Weekly

Forensics anthropologist Gideon Oliver's compelling 14th adventure (after 2006's Unnatural Selection) involves a hot, humid and decidedly deadly expedition up the Amazon River with his friends Phil Boyajian, who heads a budget travel agency, and FBI agent John Lau. While Phil rates the boat's amenities, Gideon and John marvel at the natural wonders. But before long, they pick up on tension among the other passengers, who include world-famous ethnobotanist Arden Scofield and two of his colleagues-a ghostwriter and a bug researcher-plus a mysterious guide known only as Cisco. As the travelers go deep into the jungle, fearful of the rarely seen Chayacuro headhunters, Gideon and his pals find themselves in the middle of a decades-old blood feud, along with drug smuggling, greed and murder. Edgar-winner Elkins delivers fascinating descriptions of the Amazon and a satisfying denouement, courtesy of Gideon's characteristically astute analysis of human remains. (June)

Library Journal

For forensics professor Gideon Oliver, on an Amazon riverboat expedition in his 13th case, humans may prove to be more dangerous than a jungle full of predators. From Edgar Award winner Elkins (Unnatural Selection). Elkins lives in Washington. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver steams down the Amazon and into intrigue, violence and unbearable humidity. Thirty years after Arden Scofield abandoned his two grad-school friends to the poisoned darts of Peru's Chayacuro tribe and scrambled off with the rubber-tree seeds that would make his fortune, Professor Scofield is sitting pretty. He's a highly regarded ethnobotanist, a nationally known author and a perennial leader of research expeditions in the Amazon basin. His companions on this trip include his junior colleague Maggie Gray, his hapless student Tim Loeffler, his ghostwriter Mel Pulaski, Department of Agriculture ethnoentomologist Duayne V. Osterhout and a trio of nonprofessional passengers: raffish tour guide Phil Boyajian and his friends John Lau of the FBI and Gideon Oliver, the "Skeleton Detective" (Unnatural Selection, 2006, etc.). Unbeknownst to Gideon, he and his buddies aren't the only unofficial cargo; Scofield has bribed Capt. Vargas to smuggle a large quantity of coca paste in the coffee beans. Except for the oppressive weather, some huge bugs that delight Osterhout and disgust everyone else, not to mention the odd spear tossed through a window, all goes well, if sluggishly, until Gideon's wakened by a splash in the night and finds two of his shipmates missing and a third thrashing in the river. Are the perps avenging local tribesmen, territorial drug lords or someone closer to home?More dank travelogue than mystery, though Gideon manages a nice display of erudite deduction toward the end.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0425222500
  
• ISBN-13: 9780425222508
• Format: Mass Market Paperback, 272pp
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
• Pub. Date: July 2008
• Edition Description: Reprint
• Sales Rank: 16,683
• Series: Gideon Oliver Series, #14