Hellhound on his Trail
  • Published: 3 October 2011
  • ISBN: 9781846143625
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 304

Hellhound on his Trail

The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin

Formats & editions
EBook
3 Oct 2011
Paperback
12 Sep 2011
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The definitive account of one of the darkest moments in post-War America's history

Hellhound on His Trail is the story of two very different men whose lives catastrophically interweaved over the course of some nine months in the late 1960s: one was a thief and con man called James Earl Ray, the other one of the greatest American figures of the twentieth century, Martin Luther King Jr.

Hampton Sides follows in Ray's footsteps as he escapes from prison, creates a new identity for himself and becomes convinced of his mission to kill King. Hellhound on His Trail is equally the story of King himself in his last months, fighting to keep his ideals alive in the face of intensive FBI surveillance and his own exhausted frustration.

With relentless storytelling drive, Sides follows Ray and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until the fateful moment, on 4 April 1968 at a Memphis hotel, when the drifter finally caught up with his prey. Nationwide riots were sparked by the assassination, followed by the largest manhunt in American history.
  • Published: 3 October 2011
  • ISBN: 9781846143625
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 304
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About the author

Hampton Sides

A native of Memphis, Hampton Sides is editor-at-large for Outside magazine and the author of the international best-seller, Ghost Soldiers (Doubleday), which was the basis for the 2005 Miramax film, The Great Raid. Ghost Soldiers won the 2002 PEN USA award for non-fiction and the 2002 Discover Award from Barnes & Noble, and his magazine work has been twice nominated for National Magazine Awards for feature writing. Hampton is also the author of Americana (Anchor) and Stomping Grounds (William Morrow). A graduate of Yale with a B.A. in history, he lives in New Mexico with his wife, Anne, and their three sons.

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Praise for Hellhound on his Trail

[Praise for Ghost Soldiers]: An enthralling, deeply disturbing look at the horrors of war. It is impossible to read without wondering uneasily how you, the reader, would respond if forced to undergo the monstrous trials described with such immediacy by Hampton Sides.

Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air

[Praise for Blood and Thunder]: An Epic of the American West: Absorbing and well written ... Anyone who has read Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian or grew up on John Ford westerns will be enlightened.

Michael Moorcock, Guardian

Viscerally dramatic... creates the momentum of a tightly constructed nonfiction film... spellbinding... bold, dynamic, unusually vivid

Janet Maslin, New York Times

Hellhound on His Trail reconstructs this taut, tense narrative with the immediacy of a novel. Yet what makes the book so powerful--indeed what lifts it into the ranks of a masterpiece--is that the story unfolds against the larger backdrop of the Civil Rights movement and the struggle to remake the country.

David Grann, author
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