SOURCE: Day, Anthony. “Hillerman Puts Himself in the Plot.” Los Angeles Times (16 November 2001): E5.

In the following review, Day asserts that Hillerman's Seldom Disappointed contains a vivid, matter-of-fact writing style, and points to the description of the author's experiences in combat during World War II as among the most powerful sections of the book.

In this genial memoir [Seldom Disappointed] 75-year-old New Mexico writer Tony Hillerman looks back at his life and finds it good. That is not surprising, considering that Hillerman has been happily married for half a century, has six children, five of them adopted, and has won fame and fortune writing mysteries set in the stark and beautiful Navajo Nation of the Southwest.

Hillerman's Navajo sleuths, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, are like old friends to millions of readers, and in Seldom Disappointed, Hillerman explains why he created them and how he did his research...