The Shape Shifter

George Guidall owns these wonderful Tony Hillerman stories, in which Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police solve crimes using their deep knowledge of Navajo legends and customs. In this one, Leaphorn, retired, is drawn back into an unsolved case by the reappearance of a priceless Navajo rug that had been thought destroyed in a fire. Chee and his policewoman bride, Bernie, are mostly unavailable to help, and Leaphorn, without a badge or legal gun or the right to pry, has a tricky time of it. The title shape shifter is a real-life version of a creature from tribal legend, an evil being with the power to disappear and reappear as something else. Guidall is a vocal shape shifter himself, and wonderfully effective. B.G. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Starred review from September 4, 2006
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.