
Hellhound on His Trail
The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin
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Narrated by:
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Hampton Sides
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By:
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Hampton Sides
From the acclaimed best-selling 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. Fashioning 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 Kings funeral, Sides gives us a riveting cross-cut narrative of the assassins flight and the 65-day search that led investigators to Canada, Portugal, and England - a massive manhunt ironically led by J. Edgar 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Magnificent in scope, drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished material, this nonfiction thriller illuminates one of the darkest hours in American life - an example of how history is so often a matter of the petty bringing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.
©2010 Hampton Sides (P)2010 Random HouseListeners also enjoyed...




















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The astonishing insights into the techniques and seat-of-the-pants strategy of this career criminal were so compelling I practically had to keep my iPod surgically joined to my hip!
The marginal figures grabbed my interest as well - I guess that's a sign of a really excellent read, if you are mesmerized by even the people who populate the edges of the story.
Awesome read!
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Stranger than fiction
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Great story. Great flow.
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Riviting story
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Great listen!
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FBI gets their man
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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Hampton Sides did a masterful job of leading you through James Earl Ray's twisted journey from small time crook, to the FBI's most wanted list. This is a book that I'll look forward to listening to again.What did you like best about this story?
The way the author referred to Ray through his aliases from the beginning of the book till the killing in Memphis.Couldn't stop till I finished
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A tiny bit of selected history
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EXCELLENT Historical Read
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Excellent writer, detailed story
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