The Elvis Bird is a mystery set during a scientific expedition in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Reserve. BENJAMIN MILES is a Georgia-born ornithology professor on a quest to prove that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, a recently declared extinct species, have survived in that great primordial swamp. Dr. Bill Fitzsimmons, the dapper director of the Cornell Bird Lab, has relegated Miles to working from his Ithaca lab, where he diligently reviews the expedition's audio recordings. Hoping to discover evidence of the bird's distinctive double-knock or kent call, Miles is stunned when instead he overhears a possible murder on one of the recordings. He investigates but is perplexed to learn that no one has been reported murdered or is missing. When Miles' mother suddenly becomes ill, it spurs him to return home to Folkston, Georgia, where he can alternately provide care, investigate the possible murder, and join his colleagues in the search for the Elvis bird.