Dead Men's Hearts

Book excerpt: Edgar Award–winning author: “A cunning plot, a remarkably appealing hero, some uproariously funny dialogue . . . a winning combination.” —Booklist 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. Dead Men’s Hearts is the 8th book in the Gideon Oliver Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.