cover image The Killer’s Shadow: The FBI’s Hunt for a White Supremacist Serial Killer

The Killer’s Shadow: The FBI’s Hunt for a White Supremacist Serial Killer

John Douglas and Mark Olshaker. Dey Street, $27.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-06-307444-6

In 1977, Joseph Paul Franklin, the subject of this thrilling true crime account from Douglas and Olshaker (Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit), embarked on a cross-country racist killing spree that claimed at least 15 lives. In 1980, Franklin was detained by police on a weapons charge, but managed to escape from jail before authorities could link him to the shootings. That’s when Douglas, one of the FBI’s first full-time profilers, stepped in. Douglas learned from a blood bank receipt police found in Franklin’s car that he was financing his spree in part by selling plasma, and he was apprehended at a blood bank in Florida two months later. Franklin racked up several life sentences on federal civil rights charges for his killings of African Americans and Jews, but it wasn’t until he confessed to a 1977 synagogue sniper attack that killed one man and injured two others that he got the death penalty in 1997. He was executed in 2013. Douglas’s profile and later jail house interviews with Franklin did much to aid law enforcement in identifying similar race killers and assassins. The authors write with clarity and authority as they lay out a devastating portrait of an unrepentant racist. This is a must read for those looking for insight into the minds of those instigating racial violence today. Agent: Frank Weimann, Folio Literary Management. (Nov.)