Hailey would usually spend three years on each book. First, he would dedicate a year to research, then six months reviewing his notes, and finally 18 months writing. His research was painstaking: he read 27 books about the hotel industry for "Hotel", he spent months at a Detroit car plant for "Wheels", and he spent time—at the age of 67—with rebel guerillas in the jungles of Peru for "The Evening News". Hailey had no discernible literary pretensions; he said, "I'm a storyteller and anything else is incidental."