Saturday, August 17, 2019

The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman

(pb; 2006: eighteenth book in the Navajo Tribal Police/Leaphorn and Chee series)

From the back cover

“Retirement has never sat well with former Navajo Tribal Policeman Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. Now the ghosts of a still-unsolved case are returning to haunt him, reawakened by a photograph in a magazine spread of a one-of-a-kind Navajo rug, a priceless work of woven art that was supposedly destroyed in a suspicious fire many years earlier. The rug, commemorating one of the darkest and most terrible chapters in American history, was always said to be cursed, and now the friend who brought to Leaphorn’s attention has mysteriously gone missing.

“With newly wedded officers Jim Chee and Bernie Manuelito just back fromt heir honeymoon, the legendary ex-lawman is one his own to pick up the threads of a crime he’d once thought impossible to untangle. And they’re leading him back into a world of lethal greed, shifting truths, and changing faces, where a cold-blooded killer still resides.”


Review

Steeped in Native American myths and legends, Shape is a good, steady-pace cop procedural with interesting multicultural characters, myth- and legend-infused action and characterization and a suspenseful climax. The identity of the villain is easy to figure out but in Shape it is not a criticism because Leaphorn’s journey and the multicultural stories he hears and tells are more important than the mystery aspect of the novel. This is worth reading and owning, if the above back cover description and this review interest you.

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