Review: "Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers" by Frank Figliuzzi

 

Long Haul by Frank Figliuzzi Mariner Books, 2024   I don’t review much non-fiction here, or anywhere else, but a slim true crime, Long Haul by a former FBI Assistant Director, Frank Figliuzzi, grabbed me by the nose and kicked me in the gut. Long Haul is a different kind of true crime tale than I usually read because its focus is a broad view of a specific type of crime (murders around the U.S. highway system) with a specific type of victim (generally female sex workers) committed by men working in the trucking industry; i.e. long-haul truck drivers. While Figliuzzi discusses specific cases of truck driver murderers, such as John Robert Williams, the so-called “Big Rig Killer,” who confessed to killing dozens of women he picked up at truck stops, he primarily focuses on the FBI’s Highway Serial Killings (HSK) initiative while questioning—without making any conclusions—if the lonely isolation of the road creates murderous monsters or these monstrous men are drawn to the industry for some reason. According to the HSK, there have been at least 850 killings in the United States in the past few decades linked to long-haul truck drivers with more than 200 of those festering in the unsolved bin. Figliuzzi tackles the murders from three angles. The first is by gaining an understanding of the trucking industry. He interviews an old-time truck driver, now retired, with more than 40-years pushing rigs and tags along for a week with a current driver to see what the roads are like today. He provides the reader with a bug-spattered view of both the rewards and the problems of driving—isolation and a type of sedentary overwork coupled with low pay and the chaos of quotas, deadlines and uncontrollable factors like weather, traffic, and truck maintenance. Second, Figliuzzi interviews the FBI’s lead analyst in the HSK, and an expert with the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation, to get a handle on the breadth of the issue. What he discovers is the problem may be larger than the numbers indicate because the initiative relies on local law enforcement agencies to enter data in the FBI’s ViCAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program) database, but many don’t. And finally, Figliuzzi interviews social workers and survivors of truck stop human trafficking. These women’s stories are harrowing and sobering. Sobering to me because my father spent the better part of his working life in the trucking industry as a diesel mechanic and later, after retiring, as a driver for a large commercial outfit. He told stories that seemed funny to my much younger self. Like, as a mechanic, finding a woman stashed away in a truck’s sleeper against company rules. She was screaming high and my dad figured the driver was trying to hide his girlfriend, but maybe it was more sinister than that. Long Haul was like listening to my dad tell stories about long roads, angry customers, spoiled loads, infuriating break-downs, and all the strange things he encountered as both a driver and a mechanic. But while his antidotes were meant as entertainment, Long Haul’s perspective is darker. It is as fascinating and as hair-raising as anything I’ve ever read; and I tell you, I’ll never look at a truck stop the same way.

Click here to purchase the Kindle edition or here for the hardcover at Amazon.