|
Navajo Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn (retired) is not taking to a rocking chair in his golden years. He tries to convince himself that he's looking forward to hunting and fishing instead of rescuing lost sportsmen. But he just feels retired. So when he receives a note from former colleague Mel Bork that points to new clues about his last unsolved case, he welcomes the distraction.
A rare and valuable Navajo rug, supposedly destroyed in a suspicious fatal trading post fire many years ago, is shown in a photo in a fashionable magazine hanging over the fireplace of a prominent Flagstaff citizen. The substantial insurance settlement to the owner of the trading post was based primarily on the high value of this historic storytelling rug, and the detective has decided to see if the rug has now mysteriously surfaced and, if so, why.
Joe calls Mel's home and reaches his very anxious wife. He learns that Mel left three days earlier to go see the owner of the rug and has not been heard from since. She has found threatening phone messages on their home phone recorder, warning Mel to stop snooping around about the rug. She asks Joe to use his influence with the police to find out what has happened to Mel. He discovers that the man who supposedly died in the trading post fire, a dangerous murderer, may have resurfaced and is back in the area. Joe sets off in search of Mel Bork, the rug and the mysterious reappearing man who turns out to have assumed many identities over the years.
THE SHAPE SHIFTER is one of the most intriguing and intricately plotted of the 17 well-loved Tony Hillerman mysteries featuring American tribal policemen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Hillerman, recognized as one of the most knowledgeable authorities on Navajo and Hopi lore, explores not only the story of the deadly long walk that is described in the weaving of the rug, but also of the cultural similarities between Western American Indians and the Asian culture. The houseboy in the millionaire's Flagstaff lodge turns out to be a Hmong tribesman from Laos, and plays an integral part in solving the case.
Now that Joe is no longer officially on the force, he breaks a few rules, and after a thrilling face-off in a hunting blind in the San Francisco Mountains, he resolves the mystery of the shape shifter with Jim Chee's guidance.
It seems that Hillerman --- 81 years old and in well-deserved semi-retirement following serious health issues --- finds himself as restless as his protagonist. He has produced several more novels and a memoir since he officially retired from teaching at the University of New Mexico. We can only hope that this bestselling author is working on yet another Leaphorm/Chee whodunit.
--- Reviewed by Roz Shea
• Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.
© Copyright 1996-2008, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
Back to top.
|
