Hellhound on His Trail: The Electrifying Account of the Largest Manhunt in American History

Hampton Sides' masterful storytelling once again captivates readers, transforming a familiar historical narrative into a compelling and enlightening exploration. Despite my initial skepticism about another account of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, Sides' exceptional writing breathes fresh perspective into this pivotal moment in American history, revealing nuanced details and insights that challenge and deepen our understanding.qay that it became a "page turner" for me!

Bottom line - very well done. A well told story, actually many stories, that leaves one both fulfilled but also reflective. It is much more than just the story of James Earl Ray, the man who killed MLK. The real beauty of Hampton Sides' writing is that he ties together several different stories to create a clear picture of a moment in history. HellHound is a great example of this skill; just as his earlier book Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission was a great example of his skill. The real power of Hellhound on His Trail is not the story of James Earl Ray. Actually that in and of itself would have been a fascinating read. However, it is the story of the Sixties, of the Civil Rights movement, of a country and society that was tearing itself apart, and above all a ast of characters that tell the story of their time. J, Edgar Hoover, MLK, RFK, LBJ, George Wallace, the leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the King family, and law enforcement and government leaders are all there, warts and all. Credit to Sides as an author - he does not hesitate in being historically accurate - he talks of people how they were, not just what their reputations or image was. Hellhounds on His Trail is a great read as just a stand alone book. IT keeps your attention, is easy to read, but is also a great piece of historical writing and research. Yet what has stayed with me is how it makes one stop and think "this was only 40 odd years ago". How people thought, what was seen as "right and wrong", how judgments were made, the lenses people saw events through, makes one reflect on how things are seen today, and how they will be viewed with 40 years of hindsight. Well done on every level. If one wants more of the MLK story, there is nothing better than Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Perennial Classics) but for shear readability and enjoyment, as well as a great overview on a time, the men and women of that era, Hellhounds is a great book.

Hampton Sides's Hellhound on His Trail recounts the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the manhunt for killer that followed. It is a fascinating, well-written piece of narrative nonfiction that captures a tumultuous time in American history. Sides covers the final months of King's life while interweaving the movements of James Earl Ray - his killer - up until to the moment they violently intersect on April, 4, 1968. Sides succeeds by portraying King as a complicated man overburdened by his commitment to the Civil Rights Movement and his own fading popularity on a national level. Doggedly pursued by Hoover's FBI (who had an axe to grind) and disintegrating marriage, Sides paints King in nuanced strokes - fully capturing what made him such a force to reckoned with and what made him human. While reading Hellhound, I was reminded how little I actually knew about King's assassination and his killer. James Earl Ray is an enigmatic and puzzling character - there are large gaps in our historic knowledge of Ray precisely because he seemingly lied to everyone, including himself. The book's standout moment is the assassination itself. Sides chronicles the minutes before and after the Ray pulls the trigger in near real-time - following the trajectory of the bullet, to the frantic rush to the hospital, and the confused and panicked response of the local authorities. In the midst of the massive riots triggered by King's death, the FBI - once tasked with digging up dirt on the Reverend - were now in charge of finding the man's killer. The details of the sixty-five day manhunt - which encompassed two continents - makes up the back half of the book. A harrowing testament to a moment in a time and good old fashioned police work, Hellhound on His Trail is a fascinating look at two very different men who will forever be linked together by an act of shocking violence. The afterward included in the paperback edition discounting the numerous conspiracy theories is also well worth the read.

I tend to stick with only non- fiction books for my reading enjoyment. Most of these books are rather direct and are inclined to state the facts and move on from one important point to the next, with little attention to details. But there are non- fiction books that are more attuned to setting the mood and read more like a work of fiction and an excellent example is Hellhound on His Trail. This book covers the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. by James Earl Ray and it does so in a way that effectively intermingles education with engaging style. Starting with the educational aspects of the book, I found them excellent. I was not previously well versed at all on this event and through this book, I learned many things about Ray, King, and others that I didn’t know before. I knew the tragic event took place in Memphis at a hotel, but the extent of my knowledge ended right there. After reading Hellhound on His Trail, I feel like I have a solid understanding of the events leading up to the assassination, Ray’s attempts to find safe haven in a foreign country, and his ultimate arrest. One thing that I found fascinating upon finishing this book is just how close Ray came to getting away with the crime. I think it’s safe to say that, had Ray murdered someone lesser known, he would have never been caught because the FBI and other agencies wouldn’t have bothered spending so much money, time, effort, and manpower to tracking down the killer. Even with so many people working toward the end goal, they still barely succeeded. This book sticks almost entirely to the events leading up to the assassination and the efforts to track down Ray and bring him to justice. The book doesn’t delve into the trial itself and only briefly touches on the topic of conspiracy. The author has studied the possibility of a conspiracy and is convinced that Ray acted alone, but there aren’t many pages devoted to discussing this. If you’re a conspiracy theorist, you could find this part of the book dissatisfying and want to seek out additional reading. There are more than 400 pages to this book, but I like that it is divided into such a large number of relatively short chapters. This makes it easy to pace yourself, since there are so many end- of- chapter stopping points. But the truth is, once you start reading, you may not want to stop. Hellhound on His Trail is a suspenseful book that reads like a novel. Even though you ultimately know what will happen in the end, you find yourself still anxious to turn the page to see what happens next. Any book that can keep me turning the pages even when I already know the outcome is a sure winner and when I think about the writing style and the education this book provides, it adds up to a must- read book that deserves, and earns, my highest recommendation.

Perhaps, like many people, I knew little of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Sure, I was aware of the name James Earl Ray and that he was ultimately captured overseas, but that was the extent of my knowledge. This book filled in a lot of gaps. “Hellhound on his Trail” tells the story of two very different lives on a collision course with each other and history. These two lives collide in Memphis Tennessee in April 1968 when, with one shot, James Earl Ray (or, Eric Galt, as he was then often known), killed King in cold blood. But who were these two men? King was the phenomenally charismatic southern preacher who had galvanised a nation following his “I Have a Dream” in August 1963. Arguably, he was the leader of black American opinion. Ray, by contrast, was a life-long criminal and loner. He stalked King obsessively and took the brief chance he was given to slay the man. Luck played a not insignificant part. Although, having said this, King was never strong on security. This made him vulnerable. The author, Hampton Sides, tells the story not just of King’s death but also the subsequent escape by Ray. He spent two months on the lam. He became the target of the largest police operation in US history which also seconded the efforts of a number of foreign jurisdictions. In the end, it was old fashioned police work that captured the man. Sides tells this side of the story with great aplomb. Although “Hellhound on his Trail” is an historical book, it almost reads like a thriller. Sides has done a superb job in bringing the facts of the case to life. Highly recommended.

Unless you are an avowed conspiracy theorist, in which case "Hellhound on his Trail" will leave you kicking and screaming in disgust, Hampton Sides delivers an amazingly well-researched, fast moving story about the assassination of MLK and the manhunt to find his killer. I'll gladly take any unhelpful votes for my review by stating out of hand that after reading a lot over the years on this topic, including now this book, I remain convinced in the guilt of James Earl Ray as King's assassin and am equally unmoved by the purported civil trial, Jowers vs. King, that conspiracy theorists tout, but which contains large issues (which I won't use this review to debunk). Essentially alternating chapters between the James Earl Ray and MLK, Sides builds a pretty thorough and detailed story of James Early Ray's (and all his assumed identities) from the time he escaped Missouri State Prison in April 1967 to his time in Mexico and California before he made his fateful journey back East to kill MLK. What emerges is the portrait of a socially awkward, racist loner, living a nomadic life in spartan and many cases decrepit flophouses while dressing fastidiously in a suit. Ray comes from a broken, down on their luck family and like his other brothers, who all wind up in trouble with the law, he is no different. He's a virulent racist, fascinated with George Wallace and his Presidential ambitions, even volunteering to get enough signatures to get his name on the ballot in California. Ray also harbors ambitions to get to Africa and fight as a mercenary in Rhodesia to ensure a white supremacist regime holds on to power. Sides meticulously and comprehensively builds a portrait of someone whose psychological profile certainly is conducive to the crime he confessed to and the mountain of evidence that points to him as the lone gunman responsible for King's murder. In alternating chapters, Sides follows King's last months, his work on the Poor People's Campaign and his involvement in the sanitation strike that began in Memphis and which brought King to the city to join in solidarity with those workers, in spite of the concerns among his inner circle. Sides covers the growing tension and schism within the black movement during an aborted initial march in Memphis in late March that turned violent and convinced King that his reputation and that of his non-violent principles required a peaceful march in Memphis. This confluence of events and decisions ultimately kept King and the SCLC in Memphis, trying to overturn an injunction preventing them from marching as Ray came to town, setting up in a rooming house only hundreds of feet from the Loraine Motel. We follow Ray's movements to Canada and over to Europe building new identities and growing increasingly desperate as his money begins to run out and he is struggling in his attempts to get to Rhodesia. Eventually, the significant resources of the FBI (the irony given Hoover's massive attempts to discredit and subvert King), the tools of modern detective work like the use of fingerprints, ballistics and material analysis, along with the cooperation with international units like New Scotland Yard along with pure luck, led Ray's capture as he attempted to get to Belgium from London days after the US was mourning the death of another iconic leader in RFK. As an avid reader of Civil Rights books, including the Taylor Branch trilogy and David Garrow's classic, "Hellhound on His Trail" serves as a fittingly well researched and written book on the final chapter of King's brilliant life and tragic death at the hands of the sick and pathetic racist loner that was James Earl Ray. Sure, there are many people who detested MLK, many within federal, state and local governments along with the range of white supremacist organizations fighting out in the open against progress being made during the Civil Rights movement. Many people find it hard to believe James Earl Ray acted alone and Sides is certainly not going to convinced the most hardened doubters. For almost anyone else, he lays down a phenomenally compelling and well-researched chronicle that should satisfy all but those hardened doubters that James Earl Ray was solely responsible for murdering MLK.

Great book!! Extremely well written, researched and informative. I was in college in 68’ and had no idea what was happening other than MLK was assassinated. Sides is always a pleasure to read.

This book is a fast easy read. The in retelling the events he alternates every few pages between what Martin Luther King was doing versus James Earl Ray. The book is 397 pages, the assassination takes place on page 166, from there the book alternates between the personalities in Kings entourage, the authorities investigating the murder, and James Earl Ray. The book is VERY well researched covering minute detail that had been reported by store clerks, motel owners, laundry mat workers, prison guards, FBI agents from low level to high level etc. This covered James Earl Ray escaping prison about 1 year before the assassination to the time he get captured about 2 months after the assassination. One very interesting aspect of this story is how James Earl Ray did not plan out his escape from the MOMENT he pulls the trigger. But he still was on the run for about 65 days, gets to Canada, then England, then Portugal, then back to England! However, there is a style the author used that did not embellish on important detail, but is a style to retell the story. Here is an example from page 138 (Galt is James Earl Ray): "The desk clerk, Henrietta Hagermaster, put him in room 34. After paying the nightly rate in cash, Galt pulled his car through the narrow enteranceway and parked directly in front of his door. He inserted the key into the lock, turned it, and stepped inside." There also is a fair amount of dialogue by all parties in the book. I will repeat - there is a massive amount of detail in this book that I assume is correct - things like James Earl Ray `picked up a six-pack of Schlitz beer at a bait shop in Southhaven Mississippi.' The reason I don't give the book 5 stars, is it is unclear where James Earl Ray got money while living for a year as an escapee from prison. It was barely touched upon, but I wanted more. Also, James Earl Ray was a racists clearly from the information given in the book - but no analysis on why a petty thief was motivated to commit a political assassination. However, I still highly recommend this book.