The first book about the investigation into the attempted murder of Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt—and the serial killer who shot him. In Gwinnett County, Georgia, in 1978, Larry Flynt and his attorney were shot and injured on their way back to court during an obscenity trial. This true account of the crime is told alternately from Det. J. Michael Cowart’s perspective and chronologically following the shooter’s life from childhood through his execution. The monster that was Joseph Paul Franklin was the result of a perfect storm of circumstances, which included poverty, cruel abuse as a child, the detestation and mistrust between blacks and whites, integration, and the hate groups that operated and recruited openly. Cowart tells the story of how his attempts to befriend Franklin gave him the information he needed to prosecute the case—and gave him astonishing insight into many of Franklin’s other cold-blooded killings and crimes, and his twisted justification for them. Blood in the Soil details with stark honesty the terrible truths that characterized the South during the volatility of the sixties and seventies, and the ugly reality that lay just beneath its veneer of warm hospitality.
