"Aaron Goings has done a fantastic job of taking a famous local legend about a mass murderer and grounding it in the true story of labor violence and strikebreaking of the era, a period when workers struggled to stay alive each and every day. Goings has masterfully combined narrative and academic history to produce a compelling, smart, and fun book."—Erik Loomis, author of
A History of America in Ten Strikes"This work persuasively challenges a century-long belief: did the maritime labor activist at the largest lumber port in the world really deserve an enduring reputation as a monstrous serial killer? Goings provides the defense that Billy Gohl never got in court. What a welcome labor history lesson from the Pacific Northwest!"—Karen Blair, editor of Women in Pacific Northwest History"True crime meets labor history in this page-turner. For more than acentury, William 'Billy' Gohl has been called the Ghoul of Grays Harbor.Aaron Goings, a native of Grays Harbor, does us a tremendous service inrescuing Gohl, an innocent man, albeit more than a century after he diedbehind bars. While his conclusion may upset some, Goings delivers a moreconvincing source for the notorious 'floater fleet' of Grays Harbor—not apowerful union leader but, rather, capitalism itself."—Peter Cole, author of Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area
