Long haul Hunting the highway serial killers

FBI veteran Figliuzzi (The FBI Way) examines in this rattling work of true crime the serial murderers crisscrossing America behind the wheels of big rig trucks. Of the million registered semi truck drivers in the United States, the vast majority are just men doing their jobs, Figliuzzi notes. However, the FBI's Highway Serial Killer Initiative is actively hunting 450 possible suspects involved in some 850 homicides, mostly of women whose bodies were dumped along major roadsides. Figliuzzi takes readers inside some of the most notorious cases--including that of the "Big Rig Killer," who tortured more than 50 women during the 1970s and '80s--and paints a hard-edged portrait of life on the road, replete with drug use, crushing isolation, and a thriving truck-stop sex trade. In a particularly memorable section, he rides for thousands of miles alongside a trucker who's been on the job for 40 years and is struggling with the industry's increasing tilt toward automation. Along the way, Figliuzzi circles a single, blaring question: Does the long-haul life create, or just draw, violent criminals? While he doesn't arrive at a definitive answer, his blend of thorough research and immersive storytelling takes readers deep inside the conundrum. It's fascinating stuff. Agent: Peter McGuigan, Ultra Literary. (May)

A former assistant director of counterintelligence for the FBI delves into the work of a special unit that examines the link between truckers and highway serial killings. Figliuzzi, author of The FBI Way, first learned about the agency's Highway Serial Killings Initiative in 2021. The criminal analyst who told him about HSK revealed that agents had gathered enough evidence to link long-haul truckers to a shocking 850 murders, many of them unsolved. To better grasp the group's mission, the author ventured back into the field to study not only trucker subculture, but also the women mostly likely to fall victim to trucker serial killers. For one week, he rode the highways with Mike, a young man early into his trucking career, to get a sense of the everyday challenges and hardships truckers faced and the personality types that would be attracted to the lifestyle. Figliuzzi also interviewed a retired trucker named Dale: An alcoholic loner and gun-owner, Dale ticked "boxes on a crime analyst's HSK checklist" that the more sociable Mike did not. From the leading academic researchers, the author gained insight into the ways prostitution and human trafficking intersected with truck stop culture to create conditions that predators could exploit to their advantage. But it was the female survivors of trucker abuse that gave Figliuzzi the most harrowing glimpses into the depths of this disturbing branch of trucker subculture. Wounded by early trauma, these women became targets of unscrupulous individuals who used drugs to lure them into situations of involuntary servitude that included prostituting themselves to truckers. As the author brings to light the important work of a little-known FBI investigative unit, he illuminates the dark underside of an industry that, while essential, is also brutal and unforgiving. Compelling reading for true-crime enthusiasts, especially those intrigued by the psychology of serial killers. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.