Arthur Hailey

An oddity: a man who achieved fame and fortune as a novelist without, apparently, having any discernable skills in that area. Hailey's real talents were in informational/technical writing: if you want to learn how an airport circa 1970 deals with a snowstorm, or what a hotel circa 1964 did with the trash (interestingly, they apparently went through it to make sure nobody threw away anything valuable), then Hailey's your man. Check out Hotel or Airport. I wouldn't go to him for stories, though: swallowed in all of this information is a plot and characters thin enough to put an "Analog" writer to shame.