Killer on the Road
First edition cover
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| Author | James Ellroy |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Avon |
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Publication date
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October 1986 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 280 pp (first edition, paperback) |
| ISBN | (first edition, paperback) |
| OCLC | 20939952 |
| Preceded by | Suicide Hill (1985) |
| Followed by | The Black Dahlia (1987) |
Killer on the Road is a crime novel by 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. But the title intended by Ellroy is Killer on the Road, and it has been republished in the U.S. under this title—as a mass-market paperback in 1990 and as a trade paperback in 1999.
After the Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy, written in the third person, 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.
Michael Martin Plunkett is a child genius who comes from a broken home: His father is a and his mother is an alcoholic and drug addict who engages in a series of one-night stands. After his parents divorce, Plunkett takes solace in a series of disturbing fantasies in which he re-assembles his classmates' body parts. The fantasies lead Plunkett to becoming a peeping Tom, and from the time he is seven until he turns eleven, he spends all of his free time spying on his neighbors and observing people having intercourse. Before he can graduate junior high, Plunkett's teachers, having noticed his withdrawn nature in class, send him to the school psychologist, who identifies Plunkett as disturbed but nonetheless passes him to high school after Plunkett emotionally manipulates him into a fit of rage.
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