Edgar Awards Countdown: Long Haul

the one about highway serial killers

First: a program note of a personal nature! The Spring semester is shaping up to be a particularly hectic one over here at True Crime Fiction headquarters. I’m in final revisions for my book on Megan Abbott, building a new course from the ground up for the Fall, and preparing two talks to present at the national Pop Culture Association meeting in April (one on fictional representations of true crime creators, one on, and I’m not kidding, 90 Day Fiancé). Because of these annoying commitments that, it’s true, do allow me to pay rent and feed my cat, I might not be able to maintain a weekly schedule for the newsletter. I am aiming for every other week, and might throw in a few process posts as I research the true crime talk, because hey, it seems pretty on brand! Thank you for your patience and your understanding. And now, on to the first installment of my takes on this year’s Edgar Award nominees for Best Fact Crime (ugh).

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Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers is written by former F.B.I. agent Frank Figliuzzi, and boy, does he not mind reminding you that he’s a former F.B.I. agent! Though to be fair, if I were assistant director for counterintelligence for twenty-five years, I’d probably mention it early and often as well.¹ The subject is definitely an urgent one: over 800 homicides have been linked to long-haul truck drivers, and most of the victims are sex workers, a marginalized and particularly endangered community. However, because the information on these killings and killers is vanishingly small, Figliuzzi uses amateur ethnographies of trucking culture, trafficked victims, and federal investigators to what could generously be called “contextualize” and more snarkily be called “pad” the book.²

I’m leaning towards contextualize, though. It’s interesting, and more than a little terrifying, to hear how underpoliced the regulations around loading and transporting thousands of pounds of goods across highways mere feet from passenger cars are.³ At the time of the novel’s publication, Figliuzzi notes that government inspectors are underfunded and fighting a losing battle against lobbyists and corporate interests. With the current goals and policies of the present administration in America, it’s hard to generate much hope that things won’t soon be getting much, much worse. But does this have much to do with long-haul drivers who are murderers? Eh, probably, but there just isn’t enough meat to make that sandwich in this book. The segues are a little forced at times. The paragraphs on compensations and insurance are necessary for understanding the trucking subculture, but the segues to murder are a little forced.

Figliuzzi also makes a good faith attempt to report out on the way sex work operates in this space. I wouldn’t call his writing about sex work nuanced, but it’s not insensitive either. He makes the incisive point that:

As for law enforcement, they would be wise to spend far less time arresting the sex-trafficked and more time identifying them as victims and sources of intelligence—about drugs, pimps, and potentially violent truckers. Hannah offered words of advice to the police about combating trafficking: “It has to be a collective effort with the community—a holistic approach to supply and demand. It’s too stovepiped. Cops do their thing; social workers do theirs. Drug treatment centers do their own thing. More partnerships are needed.”

Figliuzzi’s inclusion of Hannah’s voice and perspective in this passage is representative of one of the book’s strengths: he often includes lengthy quotations from truckers, sex workers, and investigators, allowing them to explain their perspectives and insights in their own words.

It pains me to say that one of the book’s weaknesses, though, is Figliuzzi’s voice. He has a tendency towards prose of a purple-ish hue that feels at best old-fashioned and at worst salacious. For example, he speaks of “the demons consuming” one trucker’s “soul” as he tortured a victim; calls perpetrators “homicidal maniacs”; and speculates that one murderer “was hooked on the rush of adrenaline streaming into his bloodstream, heightening his senses with every kill.” The writing is giving Dateline, and it served to distance me a bit from the content. And this might just be a personal peeve, but he quotes The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to essentially make the point that it’s important to ask other people about their experiences. #why

I think one of the other drawbacks for me about this book comes down to personal preference. Long Haul is very much an overview of a trend in crime and policing rather than a deep dive into one particular act of violence that serves as a lens to explore larger sociopolitical forces that might on their face seem to have very little to do with crime at all. And as a reader, I just happen to prefer the latter type of true crime narrative. But! Overall, the book is very readable, and contains facts about trucking that you are unlikely to forget the next time you are behind a rig hauling pipes that might or might not have been properly secured!

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being me sipping white wine on the beach at an all-inclusive resort and 10 being me as Mrs. White from Clue with flames, flames on the side of my face, breathing heaving breaths, how annoyed will I be if Long Haul wins the Edgar? 5

1. What are the odds that they make “assistant to the director of counterintelligence” jokes over at the Hoover Building?

2. For example, I could have done without the author’s obsessive notations on what he and the trucker he was embedding with were eating that week, and their shared commitment to healthy choices such as leaving the pita bread off an order of chicken and rice.

3. For example, it takes three weeks start to finish to acquire a commercial drivers license.