Reviews
Edgar Award Nominee * One of the Best Books of the Year: O, The Oprah Magazine , Time , The Washington Post , The Christian Science Monitor , St. Louis Post-Dispatch , San Francisco Chronicle "Viscerally dramatic ... spellbinding ... Both Dr. King and Ray come to life in these remarkable pages. " -- The New York Times "Impossible-to-put-down . . . a masterful work of narrative nonfiction, no one does it better than Hampton Sides." -- Associated Press "Gripping, exciting, and engrossing . . . hits us with the shuddering intensity of a high-speed collision." -- The Times of London "A taut, vibrant account....chilling in detail and particularly haunting in evoking the confusion and pathos in the minutes following the single crack of Ray's rifle." -- Los Angeles Times "An authoritative, engrossing narrative....thoroughly researched but executed with the pacing of a fine novel and a dash of top-notch police procedural....meticulous."-- Miami Herald "Searing. . . . A complex crime mystery that shifts the focus from Dr. King to his killer. . . . Gripping."-- Wall Street Journal "As urgent a page-turner as any crime novel -- a feat Sides accomplishes without sacrificing historical detail and insight." --St. Petersburg Times "Remarkable. . . . A window on the passions and contradictions of an era....a page-turner."--Christian Science Monitor "A riveting re-creation of a tragedy. . . . Through Sides' use of novelistic pacing, details and descriptions, he creates suspense that will propel readers through a slice of history."-- USA Today "Enlightening . . . a valuable contribution to the historical record [and] a memorable and persuasive portrait." -- The Washington Post "Meticulously researched, reads like nothing so much as a novel ... creating plenty of plain old-fashioned suspense that makes the reader's heart pound."-- The Portland Oregonian "It's as much thriller as history book and the compulsive story races along like a fugitive on the lam."-- San Francisco Gate "Sides' meticulous yet driving account of Ray's plot to murder King and the 68-day international manhunt that followed is in essence a true-crime story and a splendid specimen of the genre--a genuine corker."-- Salon "Remarkable journalism. . . . compulsively readable. . . . [Sides] writes . . . with a passion that resonates.....Compelling" -- Dallas Morning News "Extraordinary....remarkable journalism.....compulsively readable." --San Francisco Chronicle "Hellhound unfolds like a mystery--one read not for the ending but for all the missteps, gotchas and near misses along the way."-- Time "Exhaustively researched, fast-paced and at times minute-by-minute telling....To Sides' great credit, this is a feat of shoe-leather reporting and research....astonishing....briskly alive."-- Austin American Statesman "Meticulous....a page turner, and something more: It brings the disquiet of an era fully alive."-- Bloomberg "A carefully researched and crisply written account....Sides crafts careful profiles of his major characters"-- St. Louis Post-Dispatch "[Sides] masterfully recreates the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr ....Though the outcome is clear, we are nonetheless rapt--and then devastated."-- Time Out New York "Nailbitingly riveting."-- Newsday, "Viscerally dramatic … spellbinding … Both Dr. King and Ray come to life in these remarkable pages. " - The New York Times "Impossible-to-put-down . . . a masterful work of narrative nonfiction, no one does it better than Hampton Sides." - Associated Press "Gripping, exciting, and engrossing . . . hits us with the shuddering intensity of a high-speed collision." - The Times of London "A taut, vibrant account....chilling in detail and particularly haunting in evoking the confusion and pathos in the minutes following the single crack of Ray's rifle." - Los Angeles Times "An authoritative, engrossing narrative....thoroughly researched but executed with the pacing of a fine novel and a dash of top-notch police procedural....meticulous."-- Miami Herald "Searing. . . . A complex crime mystery that shifts the focus from Dr. King to his killer. . . . Gripping."-- Wall Street Journal "As urgent a page-turner as any crime novel - a feat Sides accomplishes without sacrificing historical detail and insight." --St. Petersburg Times "Remarkable. . . . A window on the passions and contradictions of an era....a page-turner."--Christian Science Monitor "A riveting re-creation of a tragedy. . . . Through Sides' use of novelistic pacing, details and descriptions, he creates suspense that will propel readers through a slice of history."-- USA Today "Enlightening . . . a valuable contribution to the historical record [and] a memorable and persuasive portrait." -- The Washington Post "Meticulously researched, reads like nothing so much as a novel ... creating plenty of plain old-fashioned suspense that makes the reader's heart pound."-- The Portland Oregonian "It's as much thriller as history book and the compulsive story races along like a fugitive on the lam."-- San Francisco Gate "Sides' meticulous yet driving account of Ray's plot to murder King and the 68-day international manhunt that followed is in essence a true-crime story and a splendid specimen of the genre-a genuine corker."-- Salon "Remarkable journalism. . . . compulsively readable. . . . [Sides] writes . . . with a passion that resonates.....Compelling" -- Dallas Morning News "Extraordinary....remarkable journalism.....compulsively readable." -San Francisco Chronicle "Hellhound unfolds like a mystery--one read not for the ending but for all the missteps, gotchas and near misses along the way."-- Time "Exhaustively researched, fast-paced and at times minute-by-minute telling....To Sides' great credit, this is a feat of shoe-leather reporting and research....astonishing....briskly alive."-- Austin American Statesman "Meticulous....a page turner, and something more: It brings the disquiet of an era fully alive."- Bloomberg "A carefully researched and crisply written account....Sides crafts careful profiles of his major characters"-- St. Louis Post-Dispatch "[Sides] masterfully recreates the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr ....Though the outcome is clear, we are nonetheless rapt-and then devastated."-- Time Out New York "Nailbitingly riveting."-- Newsday, "Viscerally dramatic ... spellbinding ... Both Dr. King and Ray come to life in these remarkable pages. " -- The New York Times "Impossible-to-put-down . . . a masterful work of narrative nonfiction, no one does it better than Hampton Sides." -- Associated Press "Gripping, exciting, and engrossing . . . hits us with the shuddering intensity of a high-speed collision." -- The Times of London "A taut, vibrant account....chilling in detail and particularly haunting in evoking the confusion and pathos in the minutes following the single crack of Ray's rifle." -- Los Angeles Times "An authoritative, engrossing narrative....thoroughly researched but executed with the pacing of a fine novel and a dash of top-notch police procedural....meticulous."-- Miami Herald "Searing. . . . A complex crime mystery that shifts the focus from Dr. King to his killer. . . . Gripping."-- Wall Street Journal "As urgent a page-turner as any crime novel -- a feat Sides accomplishes without sacrificing historical detail and insight." --St. Petersburg Times "Remarkable. . . . A window on the passions and contradictions of an era....a page-turner."--Christian Science Monitor "A riveting re-creation of a tragedy. . . . Through Sides' use of novelistic pacing, details and descriptions, he creates suspense that will propel readers through a slice of history."-- USA Today "Enlightening . . . a valuable contribution to the historical record [and] a memorable and persuasive portrait." -- The Washington Post "Meticulously researched, reads like nothing so much as a novel ... creating plenty of plain old-fashioned suspense that makes the reader's heart pound."-- The Portland Oregonian "It's as much thriller as history book and the compulsive story races along like a fugitive on the lam."-- San Francisco Gate "Sides' meticulous yet driving account of Ray's plot to murder King and the 68-day international manhunt that followed is in essence a true-crime story and a splendid specimen of the genre--a genuine corker."-- Salon "Remarkable journalism. . . . compulsively readable. . . . [Sides] writes . . . with a passion that resonates.....Compelling" -- Dallas Morning News "Extraordinary....remarkable journalism.....compulsively readable." --San Francisco Chronicle "Hellhound unfolds like a mystery--one read not for the ending but for all the missteps, gotchas and near misses along the way."-- Time "Exhaustively researched, fast-paced and at times minute-by-minute telling....To Sides' great credit, this is a feat of shoe-leather reporting and research....astonishing....briskly alive."-- Austin American Statesman "Meticulous....a page turner, and something more: It brings the disquiet of an era fully alive."-- Bloomberg "A carefully researched and crisply written account....Sides crafts careful profiles of his major characters"-- St. Louis Post-Dispatch "[Sides] masterfully recreates the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr ....Though the outcome is clear, we are nonetheless rapt--and then devastated."-- Time Out New York "Nailbitingly riveting."-- Newsday, "Enlightening . . . a valuable contribution to the historical record [and] a memorable and persuasive portrait . . . Ray''s desire to achieve something in life, Sides convincingly and originally argues, was first and foremost what sent him on his deadly trail to Memphis." -- The Washington Post "[Sides] has pieced together a viscerally dramatic account....Sides writes in forceful, dignified, obscenity-free language and creates the momentum of a tightly constructed nonfiction film....Both Dr. King and Ray come to life in these remarkable pages, generating great suspense....spellbinding....[A ]bold, dynamic, unusually vivid book"-- New York Times "Searing&Skillfully lifts the obscure details of the assassination out of the realm of historical elegy and translates them into a complex crime mystery that shifts the focus from Dr. King to his killer. Sides's reconstruction of the assassination itself is searing and a reminder of how little we know about it. Relying on FBI recordes, memoirs and past historians' accounts, Sides re-creates Ray's journey from his prison escape in April 1967 to the moment when he fired the single shot that felled Dr. King. After the shot is fired, Ray takes flight and, like an extended episode of the old television show "Dragnet," thousands of agents begin their search. Sides's treatment of the killing is gripping." -- Wall Street Journal "Extraordinary....remarkable journalism.....compulsively readable"--San Francisco Chronicle Remarkable....The book is a window on the passions and contradictions of an era the hatred stirred by the civil rights movements, the battle lines within a single presidential administration, and a martyr who died just as his own flame seemed to be flickering amid dissension and disappointment.....Thanks to the skills of historian and author Hampton Sides, readers will feel as if they are standing on the ledge at the Lorraine Motel with King....moving....a page-turner....Its story is told so effectively and efficiently that readers will want to head back in time and pluck the bullet out of the air on that April evening, when the best and worst of America met in Memphis."--Christian Science Monitor "Impossible-to-put-down&HELLHOUND ON HIS TRAIL is a masterful work of narrative nonfiction, one that benefits from its author''s considerable talent as both a researcher and a writer. And as a result of his efforts, we not only have a greater understanding of King and Ray, but also a book that is every bit as good as any of the fiction thrillers being written these days. Sides has made an art form out of what Truman Capote called the "journalistic novel. In fact, the best works in this genre are the ones that locate the dramatic within the known. And no one does it better than Hampton Sides."-- Associated Press "A riveting re-creation of a tragedy&HELLHOUND doggedly pursues the story of MLK's murder. Magazines and newspapers have a name "tick-tock" for the kind of story that re-creates an event or decision as if it's unfolding all over again. Sides' compelling HELLHOUND is an extended tick-tock that reads like a tragic novel. Through Sides' use of novelistic pacing, details and descriptions, he creates suspense that will propel readers through a slice of history."-- USA Today "A taut, vibrant account....chilling in detail and particularly haunting in evoking the confusion and pathos in the minutes following the single crack of Ray''s rifle."-- Los Angeles Times "Sides is a crack research artist with a feel for both halves of the American chronicle, the grandeur and the violence....meticulous....a page turner, and something more: It brings the disquiet of an era fully alive."-- Bloomberg "Sides'' account....is special for at least four reaso, "Viscerally dramatic & spellbinding & Both Dr. King and Ray come to life in these remarkable pages. " - The New York Times "Impossible-to-put-down . . . a masterful work of narrative nonfiction, no one does it better than Hampton Sides." - Associated Press "Gripping, exciting, and engrossing . . . hits us with the shuddering intensity of a high-speed collision." - The Times of London "A taut, vibrant account....chilling in detail and particularly haunting in evoking the confusion and pathos in the minutes following the single crack of Ray's rifle." - Los Angeles Times "An authoritative, engrossing narrative....thoroughly researched but executed with the pacing of a fine novel and a dash of top-notch police procedural....meticulous."-- Miami Herald "Searing. . . . A complex crime mystery that shifts the focus from Dr. King to his killer. . . . Gripping."-- Wall Street Journal "As urgent a page-turner as any crime novel - a feat Sides accomplishes without sacrificing historical detail and insight." --St. Petersburg Times "Remarkable. . . . A window on the passions and contradictions of an era....a page-turner."--Christian Science Monitor "A riveting re-creation of a tragedy. . . . Through Sides' use of novelistic pacing, details and descriptions, he creates suspense that will propel readers through a slice of history."-- USA Today "Enlightening . . . a valuable contribution to the historical record [and] a memorable and persuasive portrait." -- The Washington Post "Meticulously researched, reads like nothing so much as a novel ... creating plenty of plain old-fashioned suspense that makes the reader's heart pound."-- The Portland Oregonian "It's as much thriller as history book and the compulsive story races along like a fugitive on the lam."-- San Francisco Gate "Sides' meticulous yet driving account of Ray's plot to murder King and the 68-day international manhunt that followed is in essence a true-crime story and a splendid specimen of the genre-a genuine corker."-- Salon "Remarkable journalism. . . . compulsively readable. . . . [Sides] writes . . . with a passion that resonates.....Compelling" -- Dallas Morning News "Extraordinary....remarkable journalism.....compulsively readable." -San Francisco Chronicle "Hellhound unfolds like a mystery--one read not for the ending but for all the missteps, gotchas and near misses along the way."-- Time "Exhaustively researched, fast-paced and at times minute-by-minute telling....To Sides' great credit, this is a feat of shoe-leather reporting and research....astonishing....briskly alive."-- Austin American Statesman "Meticulous....a page turner, and something more: It brings the disquiet of an era fully alive."- Bloomberg "A carefully researched and crisply written account....Sides crafts careful profiles of his major characters"-- St. Louis Post-Dispatch "[Sides] masterfully recreates the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr ....Though the outcome is clear, we are nonetheless rapt-and then devastated."-- Time Out New York "Nailbitingly riveting."-- Newsday
