The Killer's Trail

Charles Williams is an American master of the thriller.
Born in San Angelo, Texas, he grew up in New Mexico. After dropping out of school, Williams worked for ten years as a radio operator on the American merchant marine (from 1929 to 1939). During World War II and until 1950 he worked on the U.S. Navy as an electronics inspector, radio communications operator, radar technician, and radio engineer—an operator; later he served as a technical expert at various radio companies. During that time he lived in Peru, Arizona, Florida, and Switzerland.

More than in the United States, his books were extremely popular in France, where almost all of them were either translated or filmed, including by world-famous film masters such as Orson Welles and François Truffaut.