Hellhound on His Trail
The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin
Book - 2010
April, 1967: a prison escape. James Earl Ray, nondescript thief and con man, drifts through the South, into Mexico, and then Los Angeles, where he is galvanized by George Wallace's racist presidential campaign. February, 1968: a Memphis garbage strike. Martin Luther King joins the sanitation workers' cause, but their march turns violent. King vows to return to Memphis in April. Historian Sides follows Ray and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until 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 cross-cut narrative of the assassin's flight and the 65-day search that led investigators to Canada, Portugal, and England--a massive manhunt ironically led by Hoover's FBI. Drawing on previously unpublished material, this nonfiction thriller illuminates how history is so often a matter of the petty bringing down the great.--From publisher description.
Publisher:
New York : Doubleday, c2010.
ISBN:
9780385523929
0385523920
0385523920
Branch Call Number:
364.1524 Sid
Characteristics:
xiv, 459 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.


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Add a CommentRiveting read! This is a fantastic read before visiting Memphis. After reading, I retraced the steps of MLK, James Earl Ray, and the police that all took place just outside what is currently the National Civil Rights museum in Memphis on my visit to Memphis.
Rec by Paul Young, ACEEE BoD
Riveting!
The assassin is James Earl Ray not James Earl Jones
A chronology of the assassination of King and the actions of James Earl Jones. A little padded, but OK.
Interesting and informative, especially the police work involved.