The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman

In this 18^th Navajo Tribal Police Mystery, The Retired Legendary Lt. Joe Leaphorn is drawn into a mystery of plotlines woven as tight as the Tale-Teller Rug that started the whole thing. Arriving in the mail is a picture from an architectural magazine. Featured is a Navajo Tale-teller rug, a distinctive work of art. The problem; this rug was supposed to have burned up thirty some-odd years ago in a trading post fire, made distinctive by two facts; one, a FBI most wanted criminal supposedly died in that fire, and that fire pulled the newly minted Officer Leaphorn off a mysterious case of two stolen five gallon lard buckets filled with pinon sap. Old woman Peshlikia was of the opinion that a dead belagona had enough FBI agents to look after him, but she needed a live police officer to find her sap; she needed that to waterproof the baskets she wove to make her living. Pinon sap stained the baskets, and it took considerable work to harvest, and would not be available again until the next year.

Officer Joe Leaphorn tended to agree with her assessment, but orders were orders, and there he was, at the scene of the fire. Now over a quarter of a century later, Mel Bork, retired FBI agent is investigating. But when he goes missing, Leaphorn really becomes invested.

Having ties in cases that not only reached the FBI's most wanted list, but into the CIA involvement in the Vietnam War, and back into the Trail of Tears, with the forced relocation of the Dinee people, this mystery sees various loose threads finding their way into the weave of the plot; in a reverse metaphor, the more Leaphorn picks at them, the tighter he finds them connected.

Weeping Sorrows, the Tale-teller rug, was started when the Dinee people (Navajos) were relocated a century and a half ago. Woven to commemorate a time of unimaginable sorrow, the rug incorporates herbs and grasses from the lands of the reservation. The Dinee way involves letting trouble, Dark Winds, pass over you, so you do not loose your harmony. But the rug, woven with so many symbols of greed and loss, is a reminder, a grudge, and said to be cursed. It certainly has a long history of unfortunate occurrences. This actually makes it even more valuable in the collector's circuit.

Another legend of the Dinee people that comes to haunt Leaphorn is that of the worst kind of witch among his people, the Skin Walkers, or Shape Shifters. The most dangerous witches are those that can become other people, or even animals. Why is it that this case puts Leaphorn so much in mind of them, when he was of the generation that had the forced acculturation, shipped off as a youth to the Belagona Boarding Schools where they were expected to learn how not to be Navajo. Sergeant Jim Chee is the spiritual one.

But Chee is on his honeymoon with Officer Bernie Manuelito, so Leaphorn turns this into a retired lawman crusade, calling on an old codger's network that reaches across the nation, bored old men, happy to have something to do.

Now, the question becomes, can he find out the truth of Weeping Sorrows, and without becoming the victim of the Shape Shifter?

This story is a slight departure from Hillerman's normal flow. Leaphorn is not usually the lead detective on the cases that touch on the spiritual beliefs of the Dinee; that is usually Jim Chee, police Sergeant, and apprentice Shaman. The change is nice. This story also leads far outside the four corners area, all the way to the mountains of Laos, and while the action never travels that far, the back story does. Also of note, the use of the old retired lawman network; something I suspect we will see more of in future Leaphorn novels.

As always, Hillerman delivers a good read. The story flows like a deep river, placidly, but with power. It sweeps you along. Hillerman's stories are short on action sequences, preferring a more cerebral approach, using the action as a spice, not the main course. Well, this meal is nicely spicy, but still a thinking persons mystery. I am happy to report I figured this one out, but Hillerman made me work for it.