Hampton Sides

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tenn. For the next two months, the man who shot him, James Earl Ray, was able to evade the FBI during a massive worldwide manhunt. Writer Hampton Sides traces the movements of both King and Ray in his new book, Hellhound on His Trail.

He is reporting from Central Command in Qatar. Last week he wrote a piece in The New Yorker about his decision not to become "embedded" with troops. Sides is the author of the book, Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission. He also writes for Slate.com and is a contributing editor for Outside Magazine.