The Shape Shifter

By Tony Hillerman

Book Overview

Don't miss the TV series, Dark Winds, based on the Leaphorn, Chee, & Manuelito novels, now on AMC and AMC+! "With The Shape Shifter, Hillerman once again proves himself the master of Southwest mystery fiction, working in a Hemingway-esque tradition of pared-down writing to bring the rugged Southwest into focus."--Santa Fe New MexicanLegendary Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn is drawn back into the past to solve a cold case that has haunted him for nearly a decade in this atmospheric and twisting mystery infused with the Native American culture and lore of the desert Southwest.Though he's officially retired from the Navajo Tribal Police, Joe Leaphorn occasionally helps his former colleagues Jim Chee and Bernie Manuelito crack particularly puzzling crimes. But there is that rare unsolved investigation that haunts every lawman, including the legendary Leaphorn. Joe still hasn't let go of his "last case"--a mystery involving a priceless Navajo rug that was supposedly destroyed in a fire. Nine years later, what looks like the same one-of-a-kind rug turns up in a magazine spread, and the man who showed Joe the photo has gone missing.With Chee and Bernie on their honeymoon, Leaphorn plunges into the case solo, picking up the threads of this crime he'd long thought impossible to solve. Not only has the passage of time obscured the details, but a murderer long thought dead continues to roam free--and is ready to strike again to keep the past buried. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060563478
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Length: 322 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.5" x 0.8" x 4.2"

Customer Reviews

Still good writing..... to the Navajo, the Shape Shifter, becomes a prot

"The Shape Shifter" by Tony Hillerman Harper ISBN: 10-0060563478 Reviewed by Sylvia Starr A figure in the complex fabric of myth/history belonging to the Navajo, the Shape Shifter, becomes a prototype for this Tony Hillerman novel and becomes the book's title. Shape Shifter. Who is he? Put simply, the Shape Shifter is a being who can assume new guises and appear in different, unexpected places at will. Belief in such...

Another outstanding book by Tony Hillerman

I loved reading this Joe Leaphorn mystery. It brightened my retirement like free cell brightens Joe Leaphorn's. A gripping story about a very evil man. Murder. poison, cold cases and a man finally brought to justice even though not in the traditional way.

I enjoyed it

Unlike some other reviewers, I was not dissappointed. I am not saying it is his very best, but I enjoyed the book. I got absorbed in the story and finished it quickly. Any longtime fans will want to read it.

Tony Hillerman's gift

To be honest, it feels that the negative reviews here are a matter of misunderstanding. Tony Hillerman first attracted us all with his marvelous tales, whose strongest moments were always the personal ones, the times spent quietly with the individual personalities of his Navajo policemen. In this book, it feels like he returns to this first and most interesting attraction, and shows us surely that this is his intent, his...

Joe Leaphorn - Still the Best

A very fine entry in the Leaphorn series. where the pieces of the puzzle are like the vignettes depicted on a stroy teller's rug, which happens to be the centerpiece of the mystery. Elements of the plot weave back and forth in time. As awlawys, the characters we meet along the way are people we would like to sit and have a cup of coffee with, as Leaphorn does. I listened to this on CD and loved it all. The narrator has a laconic...