{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20261010T034321Z-reviewed-full-unique-works","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0292757522?tag=bookfrontie00-20","asin":"0292757522","authors":["Ginger Strand"],"book_id":"9780292757523","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/killer-on-the-road-9780292757523","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780292757523.jpg?v=93e9621487e6ea62","description":"Starting in the 1950s, Americans eagerly built the planet’s largest public work: the 42,795-mile National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Before the concrete was dry on the new roads, however, a specter began haunting them—the highway killer. He went by many names: the “Hitcher,” the “Freeway Killer,” the “Killer on the Road,” the “I-5 Strangler,” and the “Beltway Sniper.” Some of these criminals were imagined, but many were real. The nation’s murder rate shot up as its expressways were built. America became more violent and more mobile at the same time. Killer on the Road tells the entwined stories of America’s highways and its highway killers. There’s the hot-rodding juvenile delinquent who led the National Guard on a multistate manhunt; the wannabe highway patrolman who murdered hitchhiking coeds; the record promoter who preyed on “ghetto kids” in a city reshaped by freeways; the nondescript married man who stalked the interstates seeking women with car trouble; and the trucker who delivered death with his cargo. Thudding away behind these grisly crime sprees is the story of the interstates—how they were sold, how they were built, how they reshaped the nation, and how we came to equate them with violence. Through the stories of highway killers, we see how the “killer on the road,” like the train robber, the gangster, and the mobster, entered the cast of American outlaws, and how the freeway—conceived as a road to utopia—came to be feared as a highway to hell.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780292757523","publication_date":"20140215","publisher":"University of Texas Press","slug":"killer-on-the-road","subtitle":"Violence and the American Interstate","title":"Killer on the Road"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"TRU002010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Serial Killers","score":0.7602,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"TRU002020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Mass Murder Cases","score":0.7229,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"TEC009160","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Transport Engineering","score":0.7196,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"TRU002010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Serial Killers","score":0.7602,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"TRU002020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Mass Murder Cases","score":0.7229,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"TEC009160","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Transport Engineering","score":0.7196,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"HIS036060","confidence_band":"high","label":"20th-Century America","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"TRA000000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Transportation","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"TRU002010","confidence_band":"high","label":"Serial Killers","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Serial Killers","score":0.7602,"slug":"serial-killers"},{"label":"Mass Murder Cases","score":0.7229,"slug":"mass-murder-cases"},{"label":"Transport Engineering","score":0.7196,"slug":"transport-engineering"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers interested in the history of America’s interstate highways","Good for readers interested in true-crime stories linked to highway history"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Frank Figliuzzi"],"book_id":"9780063265158","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780063265158.jpg?v=781f034cd8322f8a","score":0.796,"title":"Long Haul","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780063265158"},{"authors":["Ann Rule"],"book_id":"9780451165596","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780451165596.jpg?v=06cf4ecc8c540e7b","score":0.7174,"title":"The I-5 Killer","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780451165596"},{"authors":["Caroline Fraser"],"book_id":"9780593657225","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780593657225.jpg?v=a9024bd18b205802","score":0.69,"title":"Murderland","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780593657225"},{"authors":["C.J. Box","Holter Graham","Macmillan Audio","& 0 more"],"book_id":"9780312583200","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780312583200.jpg?v=8d2cfee7e0a9bb57","score":0.6873,"title":"The Highway","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780312583200"},{"authors":["Tom Philbin","Michael Philbin"],"book_id":"9781402213854","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781402213854.jpg?v=f18263d1bc980de7","score":0.674,"title":"The Killer Book of Serial Killers","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781402213854"},{"authors":["Edward Humes"],"book_id":"9780062372093","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780062372093.jpg?v=e0a771f6b807b82d","score":0.6719,"title":"Door to Door","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780062372093"},{"authors":["Megan Kimble"],"book_id":"9780593443781","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780593443781.jpg?v=a93cdff966255406","score":0.6716,"title":"City Limits","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780593443781"}],"topics":[],"what_you_get":["Themes: Highway violence, Interstates reshaping America, The highway killer as American outlaw.","Reading lane: Serial Killers and Mass Murder Cases.","Publisher: University of Texas Press."]},"llm_signals":{"confidence":0.91,"pacing":"unknown","reader_fit":["Readers interested in the history of America’s interstate highways","Readers interested in true-crime stories linked to highway history"],"themes":["Highway violence","Interstates reshaping America","The highway killer as American outlaw"],"tropes":[]},"source_presence":{"amazon":true,"book_detail":true,"goodreads":true,"llm_signals":true,"similarity_seed":true},"stats":{"amazon_ratings_count":124,"goodreads_ratings_count":454,"goodreads_reviews_count":72,"quality_score":0.9125}}