Elizabeth Colton Walls

I stumbled across Hellhound on his Trail by accident. Random House sent me a copy a few months ago, and after a quick glance at the cover, I cheerfully shelved it. Although I enjoy mysteries, true crime novels are not one of my interests.

But then I read that the author, Hampton Sides, was speaking at the NPL’s Salon@615 Series. I wanted to support this series, a collaboration between the Library and Humanities TN, by attending the reading. Since I had a copy of the book, I read a few pages before the event, just to be polite.

As you can imagine, I loved the book. Hellhound on his Trail is the story of the search for Martin Luther King’s assassin, James Earl Ray. In the tradition of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, this is a dramatic nonfiction account of the sixty- five day manhunt that employed thousands of law enforcement officials in several countries in the spring and early summer of 1968. I found it completely suspenseful despite knowing the outcome!