The killer's story begins beautifully, lyrically:

"In the end, the moon was just another enemy," Maryanne Vollers writes in "Lone Wolf" (HarperCollins, $25.95). "The moonlight pinned him to the shadows, kept him off the roads and dirt tracks where the breeze would disperse his scent before the hounds could follow it."

DAVE DIETER/Huntsville [Ala.] Times (ENLARGE)
"Lone Wolf" follows the case from the mountain manhunt to Eric Robert Rudolph's days in court (above in March 2005).
William Campbell (ENLARGE)
Maryanne Vollers talks to Rudolph's relatives, neighbors, investigators, forensic experts, lawyers and others.
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"Lone Wolf" opens at night in a supermarket parking lot in sleepy Murphy, N.C., where a rookie police officer stumbles across a scruffy man scavenging for food. A fellow police officer quickly recognizes the man as Eric Robert Rudolph, one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted, a suspect in the fatal bombing of an abortion clinic in Birmingham and a series of bombings in metro Atlanta, including one at Centennial Olympic Park where two people died.

From that deserted parking lot, veteran journalist Vollers doubles back and investigates every facet of this long, labor-intensive manhunt. She interviews Rudolph's relatives and neighbors, the investigators, the forensic experts, the lawyers and the interest groups — some of whom, Vollers says, used the fugitive to further their own agendas and careers.

In a fortuitous twist, Vollers got to conduct written interviews with Rudolph himself while he was in custody. He also released his defense lawyers from the restraints of attorney-client privilege, allowing them to discuss details of the case with Vollers and share their general impressions of him.

The result is a book with a lot of viewpoints, all focused on one question: What motivates an extremist?

"There really is no answer," says Vollers, daughter of a New York City fire chief who lives now in small-town Montana. "The human heart is a complete mystery to me. ... And Rudolph is incomprehensible, even to himself."

In April 2005, Rudolph pleaded guilty to four bombings; he is serving four consecutive life terms plus 120 years in federal prison.

In its tone and subject, "Lone Wolf" harks back to Vollers' first book, 1995's "Ghosts of Mississippi," about the 1963 murder of NAACP representative Medgar Evers and the trials of his killer, Byron de la Beckwith (twice acquitted in 1964, convicted 30 years later).

By telephone from Livingston, Mont., Vollers — who also worked with Hillary Clinton on her 2003 memoir, "Living History" — talked about "Lone Wolf."

Q: Why do you think Rudolph agreed to answer your questions?

A: I think he felt misunderstood. He wanted to try to convince people that he's not a monster. One of the lessons of this book, I hope, is that everyone has a story and a reason. Even the worst of the worst are still human beings. That doesn't, of course, excuse any of the horrible things anyone has done.

Q: Are you satisfied with what you were able to learn?

A: I'm never satisfied. [She laughs.] I always want to know all the answers.

Q: Initially, the book was supposed to be more about the American outlaw in general, but you found out that Eric Rudolph didn't really fit that paradigm. Can you tell me more about that?

A: At first Rudolph seemed like he might be part of a domestic terrorist cell or have real supporters in the mountains where he lived. That would put him squarely in the outlaw tradition — a kind of folk mythology that includes characters like Nat Turner, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Pretty Boy Floyd, the Weather Underground, even Patty Hearst: a mixed bag of killers and hold-up artists who either espoused political causes or came to represent a rebellion against authority. There are characters like these in most cultures.

But once I learned more about Rudolph, I realized he had no real friends, and he acted alone. He was part of a different subset: the lone wolf, consumed by an unresolved hatred, a need to be a part of something that gives his life meaning, but with no real ability to connect with others.

Q: What's the point of trying to understand someone like Rudolph?

A: It's important to know your enemy. People like Rudolph do so much harm, and ignoring who they are and how they think won't make the problem go away. There's a risk in dismissing Rudolph or other, more organized terrorists as simple "madmen." If we don't try to understand what makes them tick, then we will never find a way to stop others from following that path.

Q: Why do you think people are so fascinated with criminals in general?

A: I think each of us has a dark side we are trying to understand and a rebelliousness that is satisfied by identifying with criminal behavior — if only in the abstract. I think we are even more fascinated with fugitives, which is what made the Rudolph manhunt so compelling. If you want to get to the bottom of this, I think it actually goes back to how humans evolved from a prey species. We may root for the hunters, but we also identify with the hunted. And it's always interesting to watch an underdog overcome great odds to outwit his pursuers.