Tony Hillerman, 83, a New Mexico writer who brought the police procedural into new territory with compelling novels set on the Navajo Reservation, died Oct. 26 at Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque of pulmonary failure. The starkly beautiful reservation land, with its arching skies, desolate open spaces and its almost unearthly quiet, is an integral part of Mr. Hillerman’s best-selling detective fiction. Thematically vital to his work is the cultural discord between modern society and the proud, impoverished Navajo, who call themselves the Dineh.
