Tony Hillerman

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Tony Hillerman grew up in the 1930s in Sacred Heart, Oklahoma, where he played with Native Americans every day, so perhaps it's no mystery that when he chose to write, he wrote about them. After service in World War II, Hillerman moved to New Mexico to begin a career as a newspaperman, later joining the faculty at the University of New Mexico. At his wife's urging, he quit his job to write what became the first of his Navajo novels, The Blessing Way. His next Navajo book, Dance Hall Of The Dead, won the Edgar for Best Novel.

Fundamentally, Hillerman could be described as an "expert author", like Dick Francis for example, a former jockey who writes about horse racing. He writes what he knows, giving it a depth and authority that an outsider would be unable to match. And although he's been writing about the culture for decades, Hillerman still works hard to get every detail right, a dedication that has earned him the title "Friend of the Dineh" from the Navajo.