Tim O'Neil is a natural storyteller, whether tapping keys on a computer or regaling young Post-Dispatch colleagues with tales about the stories he chased for two wire services and five newspapers.

Beneath his masterful delivery is always a foundation of careful research driven by Tim's insistence on accuracy to the last letter. This may have been honed by the tough editors of his past, but it is hard to believe that Tim ever had any critic harsher than himself.

While Tim is a master of bread-and-butter news about what happened today and what is expected to happen tomorrow, he brings a special appreciation of the role of yesterday. He is a walking encyclopedia of the history of the St. Louis region, reinforced by years of covering stories in the city and St. Louis County and Illinois and beyond for the old St. Louis Globe-Democrat from 1978-84, and the Post-Dispatch since.

His assignments included covering the Missouri Legislature, St. Louis County government, St. Louis City Hall, and most of the courts and police beats. Beyond the local horizons, he went to Oklahoma City after the federal building bombing in 1995 and to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

His fascination with crime and criminals was born young and fed through the pages of the papers he read — and sold — in his youth.

So he was a natural to write "Mobs, Mayhem and Murder: Tales from the St. Louis Police Beat," which tracks some of the region's most fascinating cases, from 1836 to 2008. It is his first book.

Journalists sometimes debate whether their work is a profession or a craft. Tim seems to hold no such doubt. He is a journeyman reporter who travels comfortably in all circles but sees himself in blue-collar terms. He is a union leader who spent 10 years as president of the St. Louis chapter of the Newspaper Guild, and typically brings his lunch to work in a paper sack and eats it on the paper's loading dock.

A family man in the fullest sense, Tim is dedicated to a close relationship not only to his wife and two children but to parents and siblings as well. He is an avid golfer, a capable outfielder on the newspaper's softball team and an accomplished shade-tree mechanic.

He is famous for squeezing every mile out of his cars — to the point that when civic leaders decreed the round Busch Stadium obsolete and in need of replacement, Tim was driving a Chevrolet Malibu that was two years older than the ballpark.

Patrick Gauen is Tim O'Neil's book editor and friend, dating to their days together at the Globe-Democrat.