Joel Richards has narrated 129 audiobooks on Listento.it by 90 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 620 ratings. The most-rated is The 1-Page Marketing Plan.
Good Blood
Summary
What was supposed to be an Italian vacation for forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver and his wife turns into a busman's holiday when their hosts' only child goes missing - and nearby construction workers unearth human bones. The family awaits Oliver's conclusions with both dread and cautious hope. But along the way, he'll expose some extraordinary deceptions that lay bare the long-hidden secrets at the dark heart of a highborn family.
©2004 Aaron Elkins (P)2019 Tantor
The Dark Place
Summary
Gideon Oliver earns his moniker "The Skeleton Detective" in this riveting entry to the Edgar Award-winning mystery series "that never disappoints" (The Philadelphia Inquirer). Deep in the primeval rainforest of Washington state's Olympic Peninsula, the skeletal remains of a murdered man are discovered. And a strange, unsettling tale begins to unfold, for forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver determines that the murder weapon was a primitive bone spear of a type not seen for the last 10,000 years. And whoever - or whatever - hurled it did so with seemingly superhuman force. Bigfoot "sightings" immediately crop up, but Gideon is not buying them. But something is continuing to kill people, and Gideon, helped by forest ranger Julie Tendler and FBI special agent John Lau, plunges into the dark heart of an unexplored wilderness to uncover the bizarre, astonishing explanation. Fans of authors Kathy Reichs and Tess Gerritsen and television shows like Bones will be fascinated by Aaron Elkins's award-winning landmark forensic detective series.
©1983 Aaron Elkins (P)2019 Tantor
Twenty Blue Devils
Summary
The dead man is the manager of Tahiti's Paradise Coffee Plantation, producer of the most expensive coffee bean in the world, the winey, luscious Blue Devil. Nothing tangible points to foul play behind his fall from a cliff, but FBI agent John Lau, a relative of the coffee-growing family, has his suspicions. What he needs is evidence, and who better to provide it than his friend, anthropologist Gideon Oliver, the Skeleton Detective? Gideon is willing to help, but surprisingly - and suspiciously - both the police and the other family members refuse to okay an exhumation order. As a result, Gideon, to his surprise and against his better judgment, finds himself sneaking into a graveyard under cover of night with John, a flashlight, and a shovel. Gideon prefers his bones ancient, dry, and dusty, but the body he must examine had lain in the tropical sun for a week before it was found and then buried native style - shallow, with no casket - so it is not exactly his...well, cup of tea. But it is not the state of the remains that bothers him the most, it is the deeper human ugliness that his examination uncovers: subtle clues that do indeed point to foul play, to mistaken identity, and to a murderous conspiracy that may have percolated through the family for decades - and brewed a taste for murder.
©1997 Aaron Elkins (P)2019 Tantor
Dead Men's Hearts
Summary
An ancient skeleton tossed in a garbage dump is the first conundrum to rattle Gideon Oliver when he arrives in Egypt. There to appear in a documentary film, he expects an undemanding week of movie star treatment and a luxurious cruise up the Nile with his wife, Julie. But when Gideon discovers a tantalizing secret in the discarded bones - and violence claims a famous Egyptologist's life - he is thrust into a spotlight of a different kind. Plying his calipers as the world's foremost forensic anthropologist, Gideon's investigation of the goings-on leads him through the back alleys and bazaars of Cairo and deep into the millennia-old tombs of the Valley of the Kings. As the puzzle is painstakingly pieced together, Gideon will find that the identifying traits of a cunning killer are the same now as they were in the time of the pyramids: greed without guilt, lies without conscience...and murder without remorse.
©1994 Aaron J. Elkins (P)2019 Tantor
Little Tiny Teeth
Summary
From the Edgar® Award-winning author of Uneasy Relations, starring Professor Gideon Oliver, "a likable, down-to-earth, cerebral sleuth" (Chicago Tribute). Sailing the Amazon with a group of botanists, "Skeleton Detective" Gideon Oliver is on his dream vacation. But it turns nightmarish when fierce head-hunters narrowly miss killing the group leader, then a deranged passenger kills a botanist and flees. Long-past enmities and resentments - and new ones as well-might explain things. And when a fresh skeleton turns up in the river, Gideon is sure that, in this jungle full of predators, humans may be the deadliest of all.
©2007 Aaron Elkins (P)2019 Tantor
Skull Duggery
Summary
Gideon is happy to be in Mexico with his wife - until he's asked to examine the mummified corpse of a drifter thought to be shot to death. Gideon's findings reveal that the cause of death is far more bizarre. Then he's asked to examine the skeleton of a murder victim found a year earlier - only to discover another coroner error. The Skeleton Detective knows that two "mistakenly" identified bodies are never a coincidence. But if he isn't careful, unearthing the connection between them could make him another murder statistic in Mexico.
©2009 Aaron Elkins (P)2019 Tantor
Old Bones
Summary
An Edgar Award-winning mystery featuring the forensic anthropologist hailed as "a likable, down-to-earth, cerebral sleuth" - from the author of Switcheroo (Chicago Tribune). "With the roar of thunder and the speed of a galloping horse comes the tide to Mont St. Michel", goes the old nursery song. So when the aged patriarch of the du Rocher family falls victim to the perilous tide, even the old man's family accepts the verdict of accidental drowning. But too quickly, this "accident" is followed by a bizarre discovery in the ancient du Rocher chateau: a human skeleton, wrapped in butcher paper, beneath the old stone flooring. Professor Gideon Oliver, lecturing on forensic anthropology at nearby St. Malo, is asked to examine the bones. He quickly demonstrates why he is known as the "Skeleton Detective", providing the police with forensic details that lead them to conclude that these are the remains of a Nazi officer believed to have been murdered in the area during the Occupation. Or are they? Gideon himself has his doubts. Then, when another of the current du Rochers dies - this time via cyanide poisoning - his doubts solidify into a single certainty: Someone wants old secrets to stay buried...and is perfectly willing to eradicate the meddlesome American to make that happen. Voted one of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association's 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century, and featuring "a thrilling final scene", Old Bones will captivate fans of Kathy Reichs and Tess Gerritsen as well as readers of Aaron Elkins's popular Alix London series (Publishers Weekly).
©1987 Aaron Elkins (P)2019 Tantor
Curses!
Summary
Mayan ruins in the Yucatán...a secret room in a tomb...age-old skeletons. To anthropologist Gideon Oliver, the renowned Skeleton Detective, the invitation to join the archaeological excavation of Tlaloc promises two months of paradise on Earth. That is, until an ancient series of Mayan curses against desecrators of the site is unearthed. When the first one comes to pass ("The bloodsucking kinkajou will come freely among them"), it is taken by all as a practical joke. But by the time the fourth one is apparently consummated ("The one called Xecotcavach will pierce their skulls so that their brains spill onto the earth"), nerves have begun to fray and suspicions and discord are mounting. The steamy jungles weigh down on the band of eccentric anthropologists as one by one the curses continue to materialize. It takes Gideon's special talents for deduction - along with the enigmatic insights of Mexico's one and only Mayan Indian inspector of the state judicial police - to resolve an ancient riddle and a modern, murderous mystery.
©1989 Aaron Elkins (P)2019 Tantor
Murder in the Queen's Armes
Summary
The Skeleton Detective puzzles over the theft of an ancient bit of bone - and a student's murder - in this novel by the Edgar Award-winning author of Switcheroo. Anthropology Professor Gideon Oliver would prefer to keep his mind on his beautiful new bride, Julie, during their English honeymoon, but one intrusive question will not stop nagging at him: Who would want to steal a 30,000-year-old parieto-occipital calvarial fragment? Yet someone has lifted this chunk of prehistoric human skull from a musty museum in Dorchester. Then, 30 miles away, an archaeology student is murdered, increasing tension and suspicion at a dig that had already seethed with suspicion, rivalry, and mistrust. Could there be a connection between a hot bone and a cold-blooded murder? Gideon is called on by the police to apply the unique skills for which the media have named him "the Skeleton Detective", and he reluctantly agrees. Before he is done, his sleuthing will lead him to another murder and will - in the most literal and terrifying manner imaginable - sic the dogs on him, putting Gideon himself, and Julie as well, in mortal danger.... Murder in the Queen's Armes is a suspenseful, fun-filled whodunit by the author of the Alix London and Chris Norgren series - a celebrated master who "thoroughly understands the art of the murder mystery" (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
©1985 Aaron Elkins (P)2019 Tantor