Killer on the Road
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Killer on the Road is a crime novel by American author James Ellroy. First published in 1986, it is a non-series book between the Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy and the L.A. Quartet. It was first released by Avon as a mass-market paperback original under the title Silent Terror, and has since been republished in the U.S. under Ellroy's original title Killer on the Road,[1] first as a mass-market paperback in 1990 and later as a trade paperback in 1999.
 First edition cover | |
| Author | James Ellroy |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Avon |
Publication date | October 1986 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 280 pp (first edition, paperback) |
| ISBN | 0-380-89934-5 (first edition, paperback) |
| OCLC | 20939952 |
| Preceded by | Suicide Hill (1985) |
| Followed by | The Black Dahlia (1987) |
Killer on the Road returns to the first-person narrative style of Ellroy's first two novels. For the first time in Ellroy's career, however, the story is written from a criminal's point of view. The basic premise—a serial killer who uses a large van as a mobile killing room in which he murders hitchhikers—was apparently inspired by the case of Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris. As revealed in Ellroy's autobiography My Dark Places, several elements of the main character's young adult life (such as being a peeping tom and breaking into women's homes to steal undergarments) were lifted directly from Ellroy's own crimes as a juvenile.