Title: The Shape Shifter
Author: Tony Hillerman
Rating: 
3 stars out of 5
Publisher: Harper Collins
Copyright: 2006
ISBN: 0060563451
Pages: 276
Keywords: mystery
Reading period: 16-19 April, 2007
This is the latest in Tony Hillerman's long-running series of police procedurals
featuring Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Sgt. Jim Chee of the Navajo tribal police.
Leaphorn has retired recently and misses the job.
An old, old case of his comes to life when he is shown a recent picture
of a priceless Navajo rug long thought to be destroyed in a fire
that killed a man on the FBI's most-wanted list.
The investigation leads him into finding what really happened
to the rug and the long-dead killer.
Hillerman, as ever, is particularly good at depicting modern-day Indians,
conflicted by the demands of modern life and trying to keep tribal ways alive.
Hillerman weaves a slow-paced but satisfying tale.
There's no great mystery here: the current identity of the killer is
revealed halfway through the book.
Hillerman concentrates on character and atmosphere,
and painlessly includes a good deal of Navajo and Laotian (!) beliefs and
creation stories.
Far too many modern mysteries and thrillers rely on
improbably evil and capable sociopaths.
There are certainly a lot of sociopaths, but few of them are
as capable as Hollywood would have it.
I've grown tired of this plot device, which is to say
that Hillerman fell prey to it here. Too bad.
I would like to have seen more of the newly married Jim Chee
in this book. He and Bernadette barely appear at all.