The Shape Shifter

And so we come to the end of the road for the Leaphorn/Chee reading adventure. This is the last book written by the original author, and while I've heard good reviews of the series continuation by his daughter Anne, I don't intend to continue reading after this. So you can imagine how happy I am

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that this final book went such a long way toward restoring all of my original good feelings about the series.

The main reason, of course, is that it is entirely focused on Joe Leaphorn, the now-retired Navajo Tribal Police lieutenant on whom Hillerman first focused the series. The case, involving an ancient Navajo rug depicting the tragedies inflicted upon the tribe during its forced relocation known as The Long Walk, has callbacks to a case that Leaphorn worked when he was a brand-new policeman, many years ago. In the original investigation, the rug was thought to have burned in an arson fire. But when a photo of a rug that looks identical shows up in a glossy lifestyle magazine in Falstaff, one of Leaphorn's former colleagues ropes him in to investigate.

Leaphorn is very nearly his old self here, barring the incessant carping on his supposedly retired state. I wonder if Hillerman realized toward the end that he had made a mistake by putting Leaphorn out to pasture and pushing Jim Chee to the forefront of the series? And I wonder, too, if Hillerman realized this would be his last book, prompting the return to its roots? Regardless of the answer to either of those questions, this is an absorbing mystery and once again contains plenty of Navajo culture and history to make reading it a pleasure. All in all, a satisfying way to end a series read.

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