Toss in a kidnapped heir. Add a dead body found along with a hint of greed with a hint of greed and you'll wind up with one great murder mystery.

This is what you'll definitely get with Aaron Elkins' latest novel Good Blood. Released a year ago, the novel centers around the de Grazia family. The family is one of prestige and clout in Italy. But when the padrone's son is kidnapped and the ransom request is made, all hell breaks loose for reasons only great mysteries are made of.

Readers will definitely find themselves engrossed with this tale. The plot only thickens when the remains of Achilles' grandfather are found at the construction site of Achilles' father's new housing project.

Local Italian authorities find themselves with more than they bargained for in deciphering both crimes, especially when Achilles' grandfather, Domenico de Grazia, whose body was found at that construction site, had died 10 years earlier!

Delivery of this novel, with its multiple plot twists and turns, was well worth the 293 pages of prose. Fans of mystery novels, especially the likes of Agatha Christie, will find Good Blood as a Christie-like novel.

Not that the style or execution were the same between the two authors. Readers will primarily find only sight similarities with the ever-so under appreciated law enforcement officer; in this incidence, Col. Caravele who is aided in breaking the case by a Poirot/Miss Marple like character, forensic anthropology professor Gideon Oliver. And, whereas Poirot was often heard referring to the use of "little gray cells," the common thread in Good Blood was a theory Oliver learned from a college professor, Law of Interconnected Monkey Business.