Murderland
On sale
10th June 2025
Price: £25
‘Murderland reads like a true crime thriller . . . [Fraser] makes her case with conviction’ SUNDAY TIMES
‘Caroline Fraser [is] lyrically luminescent . . . reading her prose can be like skiing powder snow on a perfect day, one lovely turn after another’ NEW YORK TIMES
Caroline Fraser grew up in the shadow of Ted Bundy, the most notorious serial murderer of women in American history, surrounded by his hunting grounds and mountain body dumps, in the brooding landscape of the Pacific Northwest. But in the 1970s and 80s, Bundy was just one perpetrator amid an uncanny explosion of serial rape and murder across the region. Why so many? Why so weirdly and nightmarishly gruesome? Why the senseless rise and then sudden fall of an epidemic of serial killing?
As Murderland indelibly maps the lives and careers of Bundy and his infamous peers in mayhem – the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, even Charles Manson – Fraser’s Northwestern death trip begins to uncover a deeper mystery and an overlapping pattern of environmental destruction. At ground zero in Ted Bundy’s Tacoma, stood one of the most poisonous lead, copper, and arsenic smelters in the world, but it was only one among many that dotted the area.
As Fraser’s investigation inexorably proceeds, evidence mounts that the plumes of western smelters not only sickened and blighted millions of lives, but also warped young minds, spawning a generation of serial killers. A propulsive non-fiction thriller, Murderland transcends true-crime voyeurism and noir mythology, taking readers on a profound quest into the dark heart of the real American berserk.
‘In this brooding and often brave book, the author finds evil afoot, but the worst monsters aren’t who you’d guess’ BOSTON GLOBE
‘A strange and compelling tale . . . Fraser, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has the skills to pull it off’ WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF BOOKS
‘Caroline Fraser [is] lyrically luminescent . . . reading her prose can be like skiing powder snow on a perfect day, one lovely turn after another’ NEW YORK TIMES
A terrifying true-crime history of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond – from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Prairie Fires
Caroline Fraser grew up in the shadow of Ted Bundy, the most notorious serial murderer of women in American history, surrounded by his hunting grounds and mountain body dumps, in the brooding landscape of the Pacific Northwest. But in the 1970s and 80s, Bundy was just one perpetrator amid an uncanny explosion of serial rape and murder across the region. Why so many? Why so weirdly and nightmarishly gruesome? Why the senseless rise and then sudden fall of an epidemic of serial killing?
As Murderland indelibly maps the lives and careers of Bundy and his infamous peers in mayhem – the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, even Charles Manson – Fraser’s Northwestern death trip begins to uncover a deeper mystery and an overlapping pattern of environmental destruction. At ground zero in Ted Bundy’s Tacoma, stood one of the most poisonous lead, copper, and arsenic smelters in the world, but it was only one among many that dotted the area.
As Fraser’s investigation inexorably proceeds, evidence mounts that the plumes of western smelters not only sickened and blighted millions of lives, but also warped young minds, spawning a generation of serial killers. A propulsive non-fiction thriller, Murderland transcends true-crime voyeurism and noir mythology, taking readers on a profound quest into the dark heart of the real American berserk.
‘In this brooding and often brave book, the author finds evil afoot, but the worst monsters aren’t who you’d guess’ BOSTON GLOBE
‘A strange and compelling tale . . . Fraser, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has the skills to pull it off’ WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF BOOKS
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Reviews
In this brooding and often brave book, the author finds evil afoot, but the worst monsters aren't who you'd guess
A blend of memoir, biography and history . . . Murderland reads like a true crime thriller . . . [Fraser] makes her case with conviction
A strange and compelling tale . . . Initially, Murderland seems as crazy as the killers it portrays. But Fraser, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has the skills to pull it off, and once she gets going, the theory she espouses seems plausible
A provocative, eerily lyrical study of the heyday of American serial killers . . . Fraser's book is an engrossing and disturbing portrait of decades of carnage that required decades to confront. A true-crime story written with compassion, fury, and scientific sense
[Fraser] makes a case that isn't merely convincing; it's downright damning, showing how lead seeped into literally every aspect of life for those who lived near a smelter-and even for those who didn't-via leaded gas and paint. Fraser follows the exploits of the similarly deadly and devastating serial killers and ASARCO (American Smelting and Refining Company) in a narrative that is gripping, harrowing, and timely
What makes a murderer? Fraser makes a convincing case for arsenic and lead poisoning as contributing factors in this eyebrow-raising account. Fraser . . . marries a poignant memoir of her Washington State childhood with a vivid catalog of crimes by Ted Bundy, the Green River Killer, and others . . . [Fraser's] methodical research and lucid storytelling argue persuasively for linking the health of the planet to the safety of its citizens. This is a provocative and page-turning work of true crime
Caroline Fraser [is] lyrically luminescent . . . reading her prose can be like skiing powder snow on a perfect day, one lovely turn after another
This book is a mapping, of murderers and their victims, yes, but also of the battle between nature and society, a battle staged out on the edge of America and in the hearts of the people who live there. It started by trying to understand why so many killers come from the Pacific Northwest but by the end it had cracked open the most taboo corners of the American psyche. This story is a menace and a beauty. It left me deeply unsettled-by the idea of monsters, by the myth of free will, and by all the realms of cause and effect that remain unexplored
Fraser's true-crime history transcends true-crime voyeurism and noir mythology, exploring the lives and careers of American serial killers . . . But "Fraser's Northwestern death trip begins to uncover a deeper mystery and an overlapping pattern of environmental destruction." If she made the story of Laura Ingalls Wilder propulsive, imagine what she can do with serial killers