Charlie Williams (UK writer)

Charlie Williams is an English writer born in 1971 who has published three novels and a number of short stories. Williams grew up in the town of Worcester on the borders of Western England, and was educated at Swansea University. Williams' novels comprise "The Mangel Trilogy", three books about nightclub doorman Royston Blake, set in the fictional town of Mangel, which is based loosely on Worcester itself (it is reported that Williams has a criminal record for assaulting a bouncer in Worcester during his adolescence).

"Deadfolk" was published in 2004, "Fags and Lager" in 2005, and "King of the Road" in 2006. Comic, rural noir in the style of writers such as Jim Thompson, they use a colloquial first-person narrative throughout, in dialect, with Royston Blake as narrator. Thematically the novels explore dysfunctional masculinity and the decline and alienation of provincial Britain, and are littered with references to popular cultural icons of the seventies and eighties (Blake's, and Williams', formative period). Previous to the success of the Mangel Trilogy Williams had attempted for some years to break into the horror genre, and the sensibilities of that field are detectable in his published work (see, for example, the chainsaw scene in "Deadfolk").

Williams lives outside Worcester with his wife and two children. He currently works in IT.