Mystery Novelist of the West

Tony Hillerman was a mystery writer whose gumshoes roamed vast deserts instead of mean streets. Hillerman died yesterday at 83, and Deanne Stillman, a former student, pays his teacher tribute at LA Observed. “Around Tony,” Stillman writes, “you knew what the heart of a story was; you just needed to figure out how to get there. If you couldn't get there right away, that was ok; deadlines were for sports reporters and somehow, he made you understand that stories unfold in their own time; like the land, I came to realize, they have seasons.”