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

Hellhound on his Trail

A remarkable achievement... he manages to combine meticulous research with a writing style that captures the pacing and tension of a compulsive fictional thriller...a powerful, passionately felt retelling of an event that shook the world.

An exercise in pure narrative, a nonfiction thriller in which the pace quickens as we approach the late afternoon of Thursday, April 4, 1968.

Viscerally dramatic... creates the momentum of a tightly constructed nonfiction film... spellbinding... bold, dynamic, unusually vivid

Hampton Sides is the author of the bestselling Ghost Soldiers, winner of the 2002 PEN USA Award for non-fiction and Blood and Thunder, named one of the 10 Best Books of 2006 by Time magazine. He lives in New Mexico.

Hellhound on His Trail is the story of two very different men whose lives catastrophically interweaved over the course of some nine months in the late 1960s: one was a thief and con man called James Earl Ray, the other one of the greatest American figures of the twentieth century, Martin Luther King Jr. 
 
Hampton Sides follows in Ray's footsteps as he escapes from prison, creates a new identity for himself and becomes convinced of his mission to kill King. Hellhound on His Trail is equally the story of King himself in his last months, fighting to keep his ideals alive in the face of intensive FBI surveillance and his own exhausted frustration. 
 
With relentless storytelling drive, Sides follows Ray and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until the fateful moment, on 4 April 1968 at a Memphis hotel, when the drifter finally caught up with his prey. Nationwide riots were sparked by the assassination, followed by the largest manhunt in American history.

Hampton Sides

A rollicking good read, with a tone that reminds me of David Grann’s recent tale of the 1741 Wager shipwreck . . . riveting

An enthralling account of Captain Cook’s final, fatal voyage . . . an excellent book

A riveting book, deeply researched, light of touch and always judicious and full-sailed about an exceptional man's final extraordinary journey

Vivid and propulsive . . . New Zealand, Tahiti, Kamchatka, Hawaii and London come alive with you-are-there descriptions of gales, crushing ice packs and gun smoke . . . but Sides isn’t just interested in retelling an adventure tale. He also wants to present it from a 21st-century point of view. The Wide Wide Sea fits neatly into a growing genre that includes David Grann’s The Wager and Candice Millard’s River of the Gods'

A lightning rod, an icon, a totem, a cipher, Cook remains endlessly fascinating. A lively, vivid, highly readable addition to the vast body of literature about a powerful and complicated figure whose legacy – love him or hate him – is impossible to ignore

'Hampton Sides, an acclaimed master of the nonfiction narrative, has taken on Cook’s story and retells it for the 21st century . . . The result is a work that will enthrall Cook’s admirers, inform his critics and entertain everyone in between'

'With gripping prose, Sides details Cook's increasingly erratic behavior as he explored vast swaths of the Pacific and scrambled to find the fabled Northwest Passage along the ice-choked coast of Alaska. His account lays bare the Age of Exploration's moral perils, which continue to reverbarate today'

'Sides make a persuasive case in 387 pages of diligent, riveting reporting that Cook came as a navigator and mapmaker and in dramatically opening what was known about our world, made us all richer in knowledge'

'The Wide Wide Sea portrays Cook as a complicated figure driven by instincts and motives that often seem to have been opaque even to him . . . As Cook himself seemed to have realised, and at times lamented, he was but an instrument in a much, much larger scheme'

An enthralling narrative . . . authoritative yet lively. Sides presents a balanced assessment of Cook’s unique achievements and frailties. The facts of his voyage are so dramatic and Earth-changing in their consequences that they are well worth retelling

In July 1776, Captain James Cook began his third voyage in HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, in Hawaii, Cook was killed – stabbed by the indigenous population. 
 
What brought Cook to this end, so far from his reputation? Cook was renowned for humane leadership, dedication to science and respect for indigenous societies. 
 
Cook’s new voyage carried secret orders, and the Captain grew strange, delivering savage punishments and leading his ships into danger. The mission revealed the sharp edge of a colonial sword, leaving catastrophe in its wake. And, on the shores of Hawaii, Cook’s expedition finally tore itself apart…

The Wide Wide Sea

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Hampton Sides

Praise for The Wide Wide Sea

An astounding tale

A rollicking good read, with a tone that reminds me of David Grann’s recent tale of the 1741 Wager shipwreck . . . riveting

An enthralling account of Captain Cook’s final, fatal voyage . . . an excellent book

An astounding tale

A rollicking good read, with a tone that reminds me of David Grann’s recent tale of the 1741 Wager shipwreck . . . riveting

An enthralling account of Captain Cook’s final, fatal voyage . . . an excellent book

An astounding tale

A rollicking good read, with a tone that reminds me of David Grann’s recent tale of the 1741 Wager shipwreck . . . riveting

An enthralling account of Captain Cook’s final, fatal voyage . . . an excellent book

Books by Hampton Sides

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