Having trained as a radioman during his seafaring career, Williams worked as an electronics inspector, first for RCA in Galveston, Texas, and later at Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington State.

He also worked as a wireless operator, radar technician and radio service engineer as a civilian with the U.S. Navy during the World War II era.

[3] Williams had been depressed since the death of his wife, and his emotional state worsened as sales of his books declined when stand alone thrillers began to lose popularity in the early 70s.

His 1953 novel Hell Hath No Fury—-published by the defining crime fiction company, Gold Medal Books—-was the first paperback original to merit a review from renowned critic Anthony Boucher of The New York Times.

Boucher relates Williams to two of the most famous noir fiction writers: "The striking suspense technique...may remind you of [Cornell] Woolrich; the basic story, with its bitter blend of sex and criminality, may recall James M. Cain.

"[7] Cultural critic Geoffrey O'Brien further details Williams's "chief characteristics": a powerfully evoked natural setting, revelation of character through sexual attitudes and behavior, and a conversational narrative voice that makes the flimsiest tale seem worth telling.... His narrator is generally an ordinary, curiously amoral fellow fueled by greed and lust but curiously detached from his own crimes.

[8] Lee Horsley describes how Williams frequently satirizes his male protagonists' attitudes, while implicitly reassessing the traditional genre figure of the femme fatale.

Williams also produced, particularly late in his career, what might be called "blue-water noir": Scorpion Reef, The Sailcloth Shroud, Aground, Dead Calm, and And The Deep Blue Sea.