The Shape Shifter (Hardcover)

by Tony Hillerman (Author)
Key Phrases: damned rug, hogan stories, burned man, Tommy Vang, Joe Leaphorn, Mel Bork (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A picture cut from a glossy magazine, Luxury Living, draws retired Navajo tribal policeman Lt. Joe Leaphorn into a hunt for a soulless killer in bestseller Hillerman's enthralling 18th Leaphorn/Chee whodunit (after 2004's Skeleton Man). The picture's sender, Mel Bork, another cop retiree, wonders if the distinctive Navajo rug shown in the picture is the same one Leaphorn described to him long ago, a rug supposedly destroyed in a fire the two officers investigated that took the life of a person identified as among the FBI's most wanted. Bork's subsequent disappearance and murder herald the dangers awaiting Leaphorn from a most formidable enemy. As Leaphorn searches for evidence to confirm his suspicions, he enlists the aid of Sgt. Jim Chee and his bride, Bernadette Manuelito, just back from their honeymoon. Only Hillerman could so masterfully connect such disparate elements as an ancient cursed weaving, two stolen buckets of piñon sap and the Vietnam War. The conclusion is sure to startle longtime fans of this acclaimed mystery series. (Nov.)
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From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
In Tony Hillerman's The Shape Shifter, a lot is riding on a little mysterious carpet. Not any old welcome mat, but a precious Navajo tale-teller rug, full of portents, interwoven with bits of bark and feathers. Supposed to have been burned in a fire years before, the priceless artifact turns up in the pages of an interiors magazine, shown on the wall of a rich man named Jason Delos. After it's spotted by Joe Leaphorn, a retired Navajo policeman, and an old colleague of his (whose car almost immediately plunges down a canyon), the story ravels through an elaborate investigation of theft and murder.

The gentle style of this laconic author and his even more laconic Leaphorn are immensely appealing, as are his insights into Navajo behavior, such as a reluctance to interrupt when anyone is speaking. Hillerman is unbeatable at the flat planes of realistic conversation. One of the most memorable characters is Tommy Vang, a curiously ambiguous, fine-boned man, whom Delos had adopted as a child in Cambodia. He's subtly rendered as something between a sex-slave and servant, and Hillerman uses Vang's gradual recognition of his own situation to propel the story to an exciting conclusion.

For readers bent on the whodunit aspect, the title offers a whopping clue, but The Shape Shifter has more to offer than mystery.

-- Philippa Stockley, author of the novels "A Factory of Cunning" and "The Edge of Pleasure"
Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.