Teaser Tuesday 50: Murder in the Queen's Armes

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


READ: TWO WEEKS AGO

This week's teaser comes from Murder in the Queen's Armes, a mystery by Aaron Elkins. This is book three in the Gideon Oliver, "skeleton detective" series. In this book, Professor Oliver and new wife Julie are on honeymoon in England, when they find themselves embroiled in mysterious doings at a nearby archaeological dig headed by an old friend of Oliver's. I thought the following sentences especially appropriate for this week, what with all the kids returning to school and all...

Any teacher of even minimal perception knows the signs of lack of interest in an audience that does not wish to offend. There is an intent fixity of gaze; the brows are knit with expectancy and concentration; chins are supported on hands, better to permit leaning attentively forward. But the gazes are glassy and unwavering, the rapt expressions vaguely unfocused, the postures rigid rather than alert. So sat Julie across the table.

(pg 17)

About the book:
Genre: Mystery

No sooner do the anthropologist and his bride check into the Queen's Armes than a mystery gets underfoot at a nearby dig run by Oliver's friend, Nate Marcus. A battered body is discovered instead of the anticipated Bronze Age relic. The local scientific society is miffed by Marcus's publicity-grabbing theories, and definitely put off by his abrasive manner. Gideon detects an uneasy atmosphere at the dig. After a member vanishes and an unidentifiable body turns up, Gideon ("the skeleton detective" of Fellowship of Fear and The Dark Place) is dragged into the investigation by the police. He's also unwillingly involved with Marcus's great "find"that turns out to be a fake. Blackmail, academic hugger-mugger and more murder surface and Gideon and his wife are in dire peril.

Those who visited last Thursday may recognize the title and cover of this book, as it inspired last week's Thursday Thirteen vocabulary list. Click here to read it.