Celestial Sleuth: Using Astronomy to Solve Mysteries in Art, History and Literature (Springer Praxis Books / Popular Astronomy)
From the reviews:“Olson tells detective stories that cover an incredibly wide range of topics and well-known cases. He repeatedly comes up with surprising and evocative solutions, all with convincing proofs that scholars should have picked up decades or centuries earlier. The exciting revelations on famous cases make Celestial Sleuth a unique book. … Celestial Sleuth has become my all-time favorite astronomy book because of its beauty and fun, as well as its many startling and convincing new results.” (Bradley E. Schaefer, Sky & Telescope, May, 2014)“Donald Olson, with colleagues and students, has published many Sky & Telescope articles that use astronomy to explore mysteries from history, art, and literature. Olson … has now collected these and additional pieces in Celestial Sleuth. … If you love astronomy, art, history, or literature you will enjoy Celestial Sleuth and probably want to give it to teachers, students, friends, and family.” (Eric L. Altschuler, Science, Vol. 343, March, 2014)“Don Olson, a professor of astronomy at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, has worked out a method of identifying locations and times for paintings from a combination of astronomical circumstances—such as shadows, tides, and positions of the moon and stars in the sky—and contemporary records such as journals or diaries. … I found Olson's book delightful and interesting to read, as it linked the science of the skies with human events.” (Jay M. Pasachoff, The Key Reporter, keyreporter.org, February, 2014)