Hellhound on His Trail

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

By: Hampton Sides

Narrated by: Hampton Sides

Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

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Magnificent in scope, drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished material, this nonfiction thriller illuminates one of the darkest hours in American life - an example of how history is so often a matter of the petty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

Critic reviews

"Sides's storytelling packs a visceral punch, and in Hellhound on His Trail, he crafts an authoritative and riveting account of two intersecting lives that altered the course of American history." (Amazon.com review)

fabulous

Excellent narrative that is written like a mystery novel. Fabulously interesting as it details the days and months of James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King, George Wallace and J. Edgar Hoover leading up to the murder of King and Ray's run to escape.

I could hardly stop listening long enough to go to work. This is one of the best history books I have encountered in years.

Read quite expertly by the author...good tone, very good vocal emphasis, good inflection.

Riveting

Remarkably well researched. A true story told in a way that really took me back to 1968 and its terrible events. Then Hampton Sides, master story teller, fills the reader in, in graphic detail, Ray's unbelievable cunning and the incredible manhunt that ensued upon the assassination of MLK. The tale continues through the eventual capture of James Earl Ray, his incredible escape and, recapture in 1977, and ends with his death in 1998. A page-turner if ever there was.... except we listened to this one during our RV travels this winter.

Who'd have thought I'd like nonfiction

What everyone else said is true, this is an excellent book. I do not listen to non-fiction, but my husband raved about the book. I read the reviews here and decided to take a chance. Glad I did. I was a kid when MLK was assasinated. I learned a lot about him and the event. And the story was masterfully told. I even enjoyed the narrator. Sometimes the author should leave narrating to the professionsal. But Mr. Sides did a nice job.

A nightmarish year

1968 was like an ongoing nightmare. Vietnam, assassinations, LBJ's decision to withdraw from the Democratic nomination process, riots in Chicago; there weren't a lot of slow news days. It may seem odd to say, but I don't think that the true horror and sinister aspect of Martin's assassination has ever been effectively documented. So many terrible things happened that year that the details of this story were lost.This book changes all that Hampton Sides has brilliantly captured the paranoia of the period where this gentle and visionary man was persecuted, stalked and murdered.
This is a great book on many levels. For me, it's a reminder of how much we all lost. This was a good man.

History Comes Alive

This was an excellent book. I love when authors read their own work, and I couldn't have been happier with Hampton Sides. It reads like fiction, and makes learning about history fascinating. I was quite young when the events in this book happened, but Sides' story brought the world of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the events that were happening alive. The tragic assassination of King is worthy of reflection. I will recommend this book to everyone and have my children listen to it as well.

My favorite 'read' of the summer.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I've already recommended it to several friends...and will be suggesting it to my book club.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

Yes - well researched, well paced, well explained....reads like great fiction with the added benefit of being true.

Any additional comments?

Hampton did a fabulous job reading his own work.

Big Fan of Hampton Sides...

...and he doesn’t disappoint with Hellhound. I well remember the assassination of Martin Luther King, but as an adolescent I did not recall the details of the plan, acts or capture of the murderer. Like a great many Americans the tragedy is summed up by the photo on the balcony. Giant figure killed by some disturbed nobody. Enough said. What else is there to know? Well, Sides fills in the details. Even though we are aware of the two principal actors, Hellhound reads like a thrilling “whodunit“, if only because we discover intimate facts about both men. Sides is to be particularly commended because he does not avoid that which has been glossed over by history...Kings many mistresses...Ray’s evil but surprising cunning...internecine grabs for power within the SLC...or the politicians who ran for cover. He is a true historian with a goal of bringing to light rather than an agenda of appeasing.
Excellent.

EXCELLENT LISTEN

I really enjoyed listening to Hampton Sides narrating his own book, he did it very well.
I didn’t know all the details of MLK’s life and I was saddened to hear he was a womanizer. I knew nothing of the hunt and capture of James Earl Ray, and that was very interesting to hear about.
A sad part of America’s history.

gripping, thrilling, and brilliant

Absolutely masterful, in terms of pacing. manages to convey the tragedy of Dr King's death solemnly, yet relates the story of Ray's pursuit and capture in the manner of a taut thriller. The author makes an excellent narrator, as well.

If you don't know the story - a great whodunnit

I had forgotten very important details about the killing of MLK. The brilliant way in which the story is constructed had me unable to stop listening. The book also brilliantly evokes the America of that time and struggles and conflicts which, even today, are only partially resolved. MLK is also greatly humanised but in that portrait his greatness still comes out very clearly. The one flaw in the book - if it is a flaw - is that I could not be convinced that James Earl Ray was a sole actor. Sole gunman? Not a problem with that. There are had to be more to the story of how Ray found himself - from the perspective of the assassin - at the right place and at the right time. The author alludes to this but - maddeningly - does not really delve in to this.