"Pate McMichael not only puts to rest the legend of a conspiracy to kill Martin Luther King Jr. but, in lucid, compelling prose, he also demonstrates how that legend was constructed, and why it persists. Anyone interested in civil rights history, the 1960s, King, or conspiracy theories—or just a great story—should grab this book and hold on tight." —Clay Risen, author of The Bill of the Century Unanswered questions surround the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and many still wonder whether justice was served. After all, only one man, an escaped convict named James Earl Ray, was punished for the crime, and he did not seem to fit the caricature of a hangdog racist thirsty for blood. Had he been paid by clandestine forces? After his arrest, Ray forged a partnership with two very strange bedfellows: a slick lawyer named Arthur J. Hanes, the de facto "Klonsel" for the United Klans of America, and journalist William Bradford Huie, the darling of Look magazine. Despite polar opposite views on race, Hanes and Huie found common cause in the world of conspiracy. Together, they thought they could make Memphis the new Dallas. Relying on a trove of newly released documents and dusty files, Klandestine takes readers deep inside Ray's Memphis jail cell and Alabama's violent Klaverns, showing how a legacy of unpunished racial killings provided the perfect exigency to sell a lucrative conspiracy to a suspicious and outraged nation. Pate McMichael is an award-winning journalist. His stories have been published in Zócalo Public Square, Atlanta magazine, St. Louis magazine, and elsewhere.