The Shape Shifter

by Tony Hillerman Narrated by George Guidall

Overview

Lt. Joe Leaphorn, who can't seem to stay retired, investigates a case that takes him back to his earliest days with the Navajo Tribal Police. When Erwin Totter's trading post burned to the ground back in 1965, the news that Ray Shewnack, a fugitive on the FBI's Most Wanted List, had perished in the blaze drew all available officers to the scene. Joe Leaphorn (Skeleton Man, 2004, etc.) was pulled away from Grandma Peshlakai's, where he'd gone in hopes of recovering the ten gallons of pinyon sap stolen from her. It was a waste of time, Grandma Peshlakai insisted, since the man was certainly dead. Now Leaphorn's old friend Mel Bork, a private eye in Flagstaff, has disappeared after sending Leaphorn a photograph of a tribal rug that's supposed to have been destroyed in the Totter fire. If the rug survived-and when Leaphorn treks out to Flagstaff to examine it as it hangs on the wall of big-game hunter Jason Delos's lodge-maybe Shewnack, a holdup artist who managed to kill two victims and finger his three accomplices to the police, isn't dead after all. (Kirkus Reviews)

Editorial Reviews

Lt. Joe Leaphorn is technically retired, but the former Navajo tribal policeman just can't resist the lure of a new case. In The Shape Shifter, all it takes to reactivate him is a glossy photo from a magazine. Suspicious because the rug in the picture resembles a priceless, supposedly destroyed artifact, Leaphorn reopens a cold case that has haunted him ever since his retirement. Assisting him in the hunt are recent honeymooners Jimmy Chee and Bernadette Manuelito. A Southwest whodunit that delivers: well written; cleverly plotted; memorable characters.

Marilyn Stasio

Like all the great storytellers, from Homer on down, Tony Hillerman knows that every dark and twisted tale of murder can be traced back to its mythic origins. In the case of The Shape Shifter, his new police procedural set in the tribal territories of the Southwest, this means that the solution to a modern-day mystery might be found by going all the way back to Indian legends about how man first brought evil into the earthly paradise the Navajos call “the glittering world.”… Hillerman’s lyrical novel is as much about recovering these lost legends — and the existential purpose they offer an aging hero in recoil from “the retirement world” — as it is about bringing a criminal to justice. So there’s real poignancy in Leaphorn’s efforts to track down an antique rug woven to commemorate “all the dying, humiliation and misery” on the Navajo nation’s “Long Walk” home from an Army concentration camp in the 1860s.
— The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

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 pi on sap and the Vietnam War. The conclusion is sure to startle longtime fans of this acclaimed mystery series. (Nov.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Hillerman's latest venture (after Skeleton Man) into the familiar world of the Navajo reservation in Arizona and New Mexico is not his best, but it will still be enjoyed by his loyal fans. Sgt. Jim Chee and his new wife, Bernie, have just returned from their honeymoon and thus have only a peripheral role here. Lt. Joe Leaphorn, recently retired from the Navajo police force, is front and center in the action, which begins when he receives a letter from an old acquaintance questioning the conclusions they reached years ago in the case of a burned-out trading post. The titular shape shifter refers to the many identities the bad guy has assumed and gives Leaphorn chances to relate Navajo tales of evil and witchcraft. As always, Hillerman seamlessly weaves bits of Navajo lore and history into the narrative, the major strength of this entry in his long-lived series. Purchase where Hillerman is popular; his fans will appreciate the update on the lives of Leaphorn and Chee. [See Prepub Alerts, LJ 2/15/06; 7/15/06.]-Ann Forister, Roseville, CA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Lt. Joe Leaphorn, who can't seem to stay retired, investigates a case that takes him back to his earliest days with the Navajo Tribal Police. When Erwin Totter's trading post burned to the ground back in 1965, the news that Ray Shewnack, a fugitive on the FBI's Most Wanted List, had perished in the blaze drew all available officers to the scene. Joe Leaphorn (Skeleton Man, 2004, etc.) was pulled away from Grandma Peshlakai's, where he'd gone in hopes of recovering the ten gallons of pinyon sap stolen from her. It was a waste of time, Grandma Peshlakai insisted, since the man was certainly dead. Now Leaphorn's old friend Mel Bork, a private eye in Flagstaff, has disappeared after sending Leaphorn a photograph of a tribal rug that's supposed to have been destroyed in the Totter fire. If the rug survived-and when Leaphorn treks out to Flagstaff to examine it as it hangs on the wall of big-game hunter Jason Delos's lodge-maybe Shewnack, a holdup artist who managed to kill two victims and finger his three accomplices to the police, isn't dead after all. Not much mystery this time, and Sgt. Jim Chee and his bride Bernadette Manuelito ("now it's Chee") are mostly kept offstage. But Hillerman's warmth is undiminished as he follows a dogged old cop who burns up gasoline by driving all over Arizona because he can't bear to sit at home.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940178307892
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	05/14/2023
Series:	Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee Series , #18
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

The Shape Shifter

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By Tony Hillerman

HarperCollins

Copyright © 2006 Tony Hillerman
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-06-056345-1

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Chapter One

Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, retired, stopped his pickup about a hundred yards short of where he had intended to park, turned off the ignition, stared at Sergeant Jim Chee's trailer home, and reconsidered his tactics. The problem was making sure he knew what he could tell them, and what he shouldn't, and how to handle it without offending either Bernie or Jim. First he would hand to whomever opened the door the big woven basket of fruit, flowers, and candies that Professor Louisa Bourbonette had arranged as their wedding gift, and then keep the conversation focused on what they had thought of Hawaii on their honeymoon trip, and apologize for the duties that had forced both Louisa and him to miss the wedding itself. Then he would pound them with questions about their future plans, whether Bernie still intended to return to her job with the Navajo Tribal Police. She would know he already knew the answer to that one, but the longer he could keep them from pressing him with their own questions, the better. Maybe he could avoid that completely. It wasn't likely. His answering machine had been full of calls from one or the other of them. Full of questions. Why hadn't he called them back with the details of that Totter obituary he wanted them to look into? Why was he interested? Hadn't he retired as he'd planned? Was this some old cold case he wanted to clear up as a going awaypresent to the Navajo Tribal Police? And so forth.

Louisa had provided him with a choice of two solutions. Just go ahead and swear them both to secrecy and tell them the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Or just say he simply couldn't talk about it because it was all totally confidential.

"Don't forget, Joe," Louisa had said, "they're both in the awful gossiping circuit you police people operate. They're going to be hearing about the murders, and the shooting, and all the rest of it, and by the time it gets passed along second-, third-, and fourth-hand, it's all going to seem a lot more horrible than what you told me." With that, Louisa had paused, shaken her head, and added: "If that's possible."

Both of Louisa's suggestions were tempting, but neither was practical. Chee and Bernie were both sworn-in officers of the law (or Bernie would be again as soon as the papers were signed) and telling them everything he knew would put them in an awful ethical position. Sort of the same position he had landed in himself, which he really didn't want to think about right now.

Instead he'd think about Chee and Bernie, starting with how Bernie had already seemed to have a civilizing influence on Jim, judging from the nice white curtains Leaphorn could see in the trailer's windows, and-even more dramatic-the attractive blue-and-white mailbox with a floral design substituted for the rusty old tin box that had always before received Chee's mail. Not, Leaphorn guessed, that many people had been writing to Jim.

Leaphorn restarted his engine and began the slow drive toward the house. Just as he did, the door opened. And there was Bernie, waving to him, and Chee right behind her, big grin on his face. Quit worrying, Leaphorn told himself. I'm going to enjoy this. And he did.

Chee took the basket, looking as if he had no idea what to do with it. Bernie rescued it, declaring it was just what they needed and how thoughtful it was of him and Louisa, and how the basket was beautifully woven, neatly waterproofed with pinyon sap, and would long be treasured. Then came the hand shaking, and the hugs, and inside for coffee and conversation. Leaphorn kept it on the Hawaii trip as long as he could, listening to Bernie's report on her arrangements to rejoin the tribal police and her chances of being assigned to Captain Largo's command and being posted at Teec Nos Pos, which would be convenient, presuming that Chee would still be working out of Shiprock.

And so it went, coffee sipped, cookies nibbled, lots of smiling and laughing, exuberant descriptions of swimming in the cold, cold Pacific surf, a silly scene in which an overenthusiastic Homeland Security man at the Honolulu Airport had been slapped by an elderly woman he was frisking, had seized her, and had been whacked again by her husband, who turned out to be a retired, oft-decorated Marine Corps colonel. This resulted in the Homeland Security supervisor wanting the colonel arrested, and an airport official, who turned out to be an army survivor of the Korean War, apologizing to the colonel's wife and giving the Homeland Security pair a loud public lecture on American history. All happy, easy, and good-natured.

But then Sergeant Jim Chee said: "By the way, Lieutenant, Bernie and I have been wondering what got you interested in the Totter obituary. And why you never called us again. We would have been willing to do some more checking on it for you."

"Well, thanks," Leaphorn said. "I knew you would do it, but I knew of a fellow living right there in Oklahoma City who sort of volunteered for the job. No use bothering you honeymooners again. By the looks of things, you've decided to settle in right here. Right? Great place, here, right on the bank of the San Juan River."

But that effort to change the subject didn't work.

"What did he find out for you?" Bernie asked.

Leaphorn shrugged. Drained his coffee cup, extended it toward Bernie, suggesting the need for a refill. "Didn't amount to anything," he said. "Great coffee you're making, Bernie. I bet you didn't follow Chee's old formula of 'too little grounds, boiled too long.'"

Chee was grinning at Leaphorn, ignoring the jibe.

"Come on, Lieutenant, quit the stalling. What'd you find out? And what got you so interested in the first place?"

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman Copyright © 2006 by Tony Hillerman. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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