Gideon Marshall Mystery

Dr. Gideon Marshall is a geology prof at an obscenely wealthy liberal arts college in Iowa, and he gets called as an expert witness for trials where crime scene dirt is critical evidence. The series can be thought of as a five-book essay on scientific literacy, or maybe the lack thereof, given what some of the characters would like to do with a murder victim's theoretical research, namely convert fracking technology into a weapon of mass destruction by making earthquakes happen on purpose at chosen locations around the world. Marshall, and his wife Mykala, are thrown into a mess involving murder of a geologist faculty member at Cavanaugh College where Marshall teaches, a multi-billionaire oil baron alum from Texas, the oil baron's high-maintenance daughter who's a student in Marshall's department and carrying on an affair with a faculty member, campus security, multiple law enforcement personnel and agencies in Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas, and eventually the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This whole mess is built on the oil baron's determination to build an earthquake machine using fracking technology and the equations from that murder victim's research. The series can be thought of as an extended examination of what can happen when powerful men believe they can achieve ultimate power by building ultimate weapons, all without necessarily understanding that what science seems to promise cannot always be delivered regardless of a person's desire. About the author:John Janovy, Jr. (PhD, University of Oklahoma, 1965) is the author of seventeen books and over ninety scientific papers and book chapters. These books range from textbooks to science fiction to essays on athletics. He is now retired, but when an active faculty member held the Paula and D. B. Varner Distinguished Professorship in Biological Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His research interest is parasitology. He has been Director of UNL's Cedar Point Biological Station, Interim Director of the University of Nebraska State Museum, Assistant Dean of Arts and Sciences, and secretary-treasurer of the American Society of Parasitologists.His teaching experiences include large-enrollment freshman biology courses, Field Parasitology at the Cedar Point Biological Station, Invertebrate Zoology, Parasitology, Organismic Biology, and numerous honors seminars. He has supervised thirty-two graduate students, and approximately 50 undergraduate researchers, including ten Howard Hughes scholars.His honors include the University of Nebraska Distinguished Teaching Award, University Honors Program Master Lecturer, American Health Magazine book award (for Fields of Friendly Strife), State of Nebraska Pioneer Award, University of Nebraska Outstanding Research and Creativity Award, The Nature Conservancy Hero recognition, Nebraska Library Association Mari Sandoz Award, UNL Library Friend's Hartley Burr Alexander Award, and the American Society of Parasitologists Clark P. Read Mentorship Award.