Watts, Timothy 1957-

PERSONAL:

Born October 19, 1957, in Philadelphia, PA; son of Harvey (a doctor) and Metta (a musician and teacher) Watts; married; wife's name Eleanore. Education: Attended the University of South Carolina.

ADDRESSES:

Home—PA.

CAREER:

Writer. Worked as an auto mechanic for fifteen years.

WRITINGS:

Cons, Soho Press (New York, NY, 1993.

The Money Lovers, Soho Press (New York, NY), 1994.

Feeling Minnesota: A Novel, Boulevard Books (New York, NY), 1996.

Steal Away, Soho Press (New York, NY), 1996.

Grand Theft, Putnam (New York, NY), 2003.

Also author of screenplays.

SIDELIGHTS:

Timothy Watts employs the dark conventions of the crime genre and weaves a suspenseful plot in his first novel Cons. Marilyn Stasio in the New York Times Book Review noted Watts's originality and declared that Cons "purrs with professionalism." The story concerns Cully, an ex-convict, who is hired as a chauffeur by a wealthy but sleazy Florida tomato farmer. Caught between the sinister machinations of the farmer and the seductions of his libidinal wife, Michelle, Cully becomes embroiled in schemes of deception, theft, and murder. According to a critic for Kirkus Reviews, Watts's hard-boiled prose pays homage to such past and present crime writers as James M. Cain and Elmore Leonard without being needlessly derivative. Bill Kent in the Philadelphia Inquirer observed that Cons is "proof that Watts can write a dark, cynical scam thriller like those you'd expect from the masters of the genre, and write it well enough to make you want to read his next book."

A later work, Grand Theft, concerns Teddy Clyde, a professional car thief who gets caught in the crossfire of a gang war. After Philadelphia mob boss Dominic Scarlotti is murdered by an underling, his body is stashed in the trunk of Teddy's automobile. When word leaks out that Scarlotti had been wired by federal agents the night he was killed, the criminals realize they must recover the corpse before the feds do, and Teddy realizes he possesses a most unusual bargaining chip. According to Booklist critic Bill Ott, Watts tells the story "beautifully, with snappy dialogue, lots of streetwise wit, and a nice dollop of romance." A Publishers Weekly reviewer compared the author to Elmore Leonard and stated: "Watts is a clean, glib writer who can drop in a cutting line with ease."

Watts once told CA: "The weird thing is, I'll be somewhere, down south maybe, driving along, and I'll see something, a house, or a store, or maybe just a beach if there's not too many other people around, and I'll say to myself, Hey, this is where it happened. A part from my book. It'll get in my head that someone I know is gonna come walking around the corner any minute and I'm going to have to think of something to say to them. We're talking somebody from my book. The thing is, I'll know it's only my imagination but the idea is still there. What if …?

"See, you create these people, who knows where they come from. Bits and pieces of everyone you've ever met. And they start to take a life of their own. What's the difference between wondering what your character's going to do and wondering what your next door neighbor is up to?

"There's something about the South. I've been there a million times. Been going there since I was a little kid. No matter what, you go on down there and things seem to slow down. What I like to do is find a place near the ocean, sit on the beach and every ten minutes or so try to think of something I might want to do next. Say I don't come up with anything, it's not a big deal. I've got tomorrow to work it out.

"I've always had jobs, worked with my hands. Been an auto mechanic. It's a switch to go from working on somebody's car to sitting in front of a word processor. A whole new feeling. You get used to being exhausted, to having your body ache from doing physical work, and it's a lot different from the frazzled feeling you get inside your head if you spend too long in front of the computer.

"The thing is, I don't even know if you're supposed to feel like this, but what a thing to do—write. What are you? You're in control. There's no denying it. You create your own little worlds. Make people do all kinds of things. I got a guy in [Cons]—Cully—he's done a lot of things. Hurt some people maybe. But never intentionally. So where's that leave him? He's got his head—his brains—and one more chance. Is this the kind of guy every mother wants their son to be? No. But I guess you could give him the benefit of the doubt. For a crook, he's fairly honest. The kind of guy that might not make all the right decisions but if he made the wrong one it would bother him. He doesn't go cleaving his way through life with his sword held high, he more or less stumbles along in the right direction.

"The real joy with writing comes when you find yourself worrying about your characters. Maybe you're supposed to be concentrating on something else and you find yourself wondering, what happens if Cully does this? What'll happen to him? Will he be okay? And maybe he will, because who's gonna go out there and deliberately hurt a friend?"

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 15, 1993, Bill Ott, review of Cons, p. 1040; June 1, 1994, Wes Lukowsky, review of The Money Lovers, p. 1777; October 1, 1996, Thomas Gaughan, review of Steal Away, p. 325; October 15, 2003, Bill Ott, review of Grand Theft, p. 393.

Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 1992, review of Cons; April 1, 1994, review of The Money Lovers, p. 433; September 1, 1996, review of Steal Away, p. 1265; August 15, 2003, review of Grand Theft, p. 1044.

Library Journal, March 1, 1993, Rebecca S. Kelm, review of Cons, p. 111; November 1, 1996, Rex E. Klett, review of Steal Away, p. 110.

New York Times Book Review, February 21, 1993, Marilyn Stasio, review of Cons, p. 24; July 3, 1994, Marilyn Stasio, review of The Money Lovers, p. 17; November 24, 1996, review of Steal Away, p. 26.

Philadelphia Inquirer, March 21, 1993, Bill Kent, review of Cons, p. H3.

Publishers Weekly, December 7, 1993, review of Cons, p. 56; May 2, 1994, review of The Money Lovers, p. 288; November 4, 1996, review of Steal Away, p. 40; September 1, 2003, review of Grand Theft, p. 62.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), February 7, 1993, review of Cons, p. 6; June 5, 1994, review of The Money Lovers, p. 8.

ONLINE

California Literary Review Web site,http://www.calitreview.com/ (January 1, 2004), Paul Comstock, "A Talk with Crime Fiction Writer Timothy Watts"; (February 1, 2007), George Steadman, review of Grand Theft.