The foreshadowing in Chapter One set some two years prior recounts the tale of the two campers attacked in the Delway-Butteroot Wilderness area of Montana and killed by a grizzly bear. The incident inflamed the controversy between those advocating the restoration of the grizzly bear population in the area, which was led by Edgar Villareal and those citizens’ groups relying on the danger to humans and domestic animals.

The story really starts at the castle where the Consortium of the Scillies meets as a weeklong think tank funded by the eccentric American multi-millionaire Vasily Kozlov. The participants were chosen it seems by the obscurity of their projects and funded by $50,000 grants. This novel finds it in its fourth annual meeting, and Julie Oliver is a member because of her unique contributions in wildfire management in the US Park Service. Gideon is along as spouse. The famed Villareal had been a past member but had bitterly resigned claiming it had been a waste of his time. Villareal, it had been reported, had met a poetic end by succumbing to a grizzly bear in the wilds of Alaska.

The Isle has a museum and the proprietress is eager to avail the museum of Gideon’s expertise and invites him to view her bone collection. While rummaging through some of her boxes, Gideon finds a bone that had been dug up on a beach nearby and discovers that it comes from a human who had been dismembered. Taking it to the Police Station which offers one hour a day to the public for complaints, he encounters one of Elkins’ best characters, the curmudgeon Sgt Clapper, who has been exiled to the island to be saddled with his eager young apprentice Robb.

Since the island is so small and the people so few, and no one is missing, it is hard to establish who the murdered person could be, as it makes no sense to kill at sea and bury on the shore. A trained dog discovers more bones which then gives Gideon the opportunity to establish size, frame, etc. of the victim. Seemingly as a reaction to this, a murder occurs among the castle participants.

Elkins draws his characters with a fine brush taking ample time to create texture and depth, doing so with an extremely dry sense of humor. Amidst the murder, the reader is treated to the antics of warm and at times loveable characters. The author’s research is phenomenal and sophisticated enough to challenge even the most advanced student of anatomy.

The plot is well crafted, and for a change from the murder genre, it is not driven by escalating tension but by the mental wanderings of s skeleton detective. Unnatural Selection is a book about a character and a subject readers will long remember.

--Thea Davis