Growing up in Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s, orphaned Martin Plunkett perfects his skills at burglary and voyeurism (and also has a brush with Manson's "family") before doing a year in prison for breaking and entering. He moves to San Francisco, commits his first double murder there in 1974, and then is off on a spree across the western states, killing roughly 40 people before running afoul of a Wisconsin State Police sergeant named Ross Anderson in early 1979. The sergeant turns out to be another budding serial killer! A sort of love-hate killing competition develops between the two twisted men as FBI serial crimes agent Thomas Dusenberry slowly but steadily tracks them both down. This 1986 novel (also published under the name _Silent Terror_) was Ellroy's fifth and bloodiest tale before he began the stunning LA noir quartet.
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The review of this Book prepared by David Loftus
KILLER ON THE ROAD has been first published in 1986. Martin Plunkett is a serial killer. He is clever and has killed throughout the United States over 40 people between the late sixties and 1983. While the local police juridictions are unable to find clues to accuse him, Martin Dusenberry, a FBI agent in charge of the newly created Serial Killer Service of the federal agency, is the only one aware of the existence of a monster responsible for dozens of unsolved murders.
A frightening novel of James Ellroy.
The review of this Book prepared by Daniel Staebler