Search - Hellhound On His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin

Hellhound On His Trail The Stalking of Martin Luther King Jr and the International Hunt for His Assassin
Author: Hampton Sides

From the acclaimed bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers and Blood and Thunder, a taut, intense narrative about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the largest manhunt in American history. — On April 23, 1967, Prisoner #416J, an inmate at the notorious Missouri State Penitentiary, escaped in a breadbox. Fashioni...  more »ng himself Eric Galt, this nondescript thief and con man -- whose real name was James Earl Ray -- drifted through the South, into Mexico, and then Los Angeles, where he was galvanized by George Wallace’s racist presidential campaign.

On February 1, 1968, two Memphis garbage men were crushed to death in their hydraulic truck, provoking the exclusively African American workforce to go on strike. Hoping to resuscitate his faltering crusade, King joined the sanitation workers’ cause, but their march down Beale Street, the historic avenue of the blues, turned violent. Humiliated, King fatefully vowed to return to Memphis in April.

With relentless storytelling drive, Sides follows Galt and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until the crushing moment at the Lorraine Motel when the drifter catches up with his prey. Against the backdrop of the resulting nationwide riots and the pathos of King’s funeral, Sides gives us a riveting cross-cut narrative of the assassin’s flight and the sixty-five-day search that led investigators to Canada, Portugal, and England -- a massive manhunt ironically led by Hoover’s FBI.

Magnificent in scope, drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished material, this nonfiction thriller illuminates one of the darkest hours in American life -- an example of how history is so often a matter of the petty bringing down the great.  « less

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ISBN-13: 9780385523929
ISBN-10: 0385523920
Publication Date: 4/27/2010
Pages: 459
Rating:

• Currently 4.2/5 Stars.

 9

4.2 stars, based on 9 ratings

Publisher: Doubleday
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Audio CD
Members Wishing: 0
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Casey H. (invisiblebooks) reviewed Hellhound On His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin on 10/30/2013

Gripping read; a lot of details I did not know despite the overall familiarity with MLK's death

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• Biographies & Memoirs >> True Crime >> Murder & Mayhem
• History >> Americas >> United States >> 20th Century >> 1960s
• History >> Americas >> United States >> 20th Century >> General
• History >> Americas >> United States >> Black & African Americans >> History
• History >> Americas >> United States >> General
• History >> Historical Study & Educational Resources >> Social History