I liked this book a lot. I haven't read many books in the series. I thought the characters were reasonably well developed and the plot moved along. There were enough twists and turns to keep me interested and not so many that I forgot what was happening. Joe Gunther is a good man and I love that the series takes place in Brattleboro, Vermont. ( )

Thanks to my Librarything friend mentioning this author from Vermont where she lives, I discovered a good read. It's quite an interesting mystery from the point of view of a police detective who is the protagonist in the series. A sort of a "male type" detective story. I learned a lot about Vermont and "the famous Vermont reticence", as well as about the science of Forensic Anthropology in this one. As I understand, Archer Mayor is still continuing with the series, this book was one of the earlier ones. It seems that Mr. Mayor is currently working for the office of Medical Examiner, and as a deputy in Sherriff's office - which certainly brings true-to-life input in his mysteries. ( )

I love books about solving old crimes and "The Skeleton's Knee" fits the bill. The search leads to what is known here in Vermont are the Hippie Invasion of the 1970s. Joe Gunther goes through physical exertions for which one suspends belief given his supposed age, and too many innocent people get killed for my taste, but the tracking of the old crime which led to the new ones is fascinating. ( )

Plain old Joe Gunther and the Brattleboro, Vermont, police are once again challenged by a case that is almost out of their league. Gunther's investigation of the death of a hermit from a twenty-year-old bullet wound leads to the discovery of a skeleton buried in the hermit's yard. Gunther ends up in Chicago trying to identify the owner of the bones from the victim's artificial knee. The country mouse does not do well there, his chief blunder being putting a psychopath on the trail of a third person involved in the deaths. As usual in this series, the best part is the author's careful construction of place; the hermit's carefully planned house and garden, the barn housing twelve-foot-high puppets where the climatic shootout takes place, and, of course, Chicago. ( )

I liked this mystery featuring Vermont detective Joe Gunther and his experiences in Chicago. I liked how he noticed discrepancies in the crime scenes and how he worked on identifying all the players in the murder. ( )