Murderland Audiobook By Caroline Fraser cover art

Murderland

Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers

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Murderland

By: Caroline Fraser
Narrated by: Patty Nieman
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“A provocative and page-turning work of true crime.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A provocative, eerily lyrical study of the heyday of American serial killers . . . A true-crime story written with compassion, fury, and scientific sense.”—Kirkus (starred review)

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2025 by LitHub

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Prairie Fires comes a terrifying true-crime history of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond—a gripping investigation of how a new strain of psychopath emerged out of a toxic landscape of deadly industrial violence

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 hardly unique in the West. As Fraser’s investigation inexorably proceeds, evidence mounts that the plumes of these smelters not only sickened and blighted millions of lives but also warped young minds, including some who grew up to become serial killers.

A propulsive nonfiction thriller, Murderland transcends true-crime voyeurism and noir mythology, taking listeners on a profound quest into the dark heart of the real American berserk.

Slag Forming Peninsula, American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) Records (Collection 2.4.1) Northwest Room at Tacoma Public Library

©2025 Caroline Fraser (P)2025 Penguin Audio
Americas Crime Historical Murder Serial Killers State & Local True Crime United States Exciting Scary

Critic reviews

“[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.”Booklist (starred review)

“What makes a murderer? Pulitzer winner Fraser (Prairie Fires) makes a convincing case for arsenic and lead poisoning as contributing factors in this eyebrow-raising account . . . her 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.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A provocative, eerily lyrical study of the heyday of American serial killers. From the 1940s through the 1980s, the number of serial killers in the U.S. rose precipitously, and the Pacific Northwest was, disproportionately, home for them . . . 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.”Kirkus (starred review)

Editorial Review

Is lead the ultimate serial killer?
Caroline Fraser’s new book is quite a topic swerve from her Pulitzer Prize-winning Prairie Fires. This one is for the true crime heads, the rabbit-holers familiar with the strange 20th-century spike in serial killers from the Pacific Northwest. Such obsessives, myself included, might know about the lead-crime hypothesis, which links exposure from leaded gasoline and pollution to fluctuations in violent crime. But we’ve never heard it quite like this, in Fraser’s heady blend of reporting, lyricism, and memoir—she grew up on Seattle’s Mercer Island, where a perilous bridge and her volatile father competed with the local maniacs to wreak terror in her young life. Murderland, which Fraser likens to a detective’s “crazy wall,” combines the chilling exploits of Ted Bundy, Jerry Brudos, Richard Ramirez (who grew up in the plume of an El Paso smelter), Dennis Rader (same, but in Kansas’s “lead belt”), and others with the rage-inducing environmental and human destruction of the smelting industry. While it’s just one piece of a complex puzzle, Murderland left me fascinated, saddened, and hungry for more information. —Kat J., Audible Editor

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This book was both meticulously researched and lyrically and poetically written. An excellent choice for those interested in both true crime and environmental issues. The narrator was excellent, as well.

Excellent, Start to Finish

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What an amazing read! I am living in this area now and found the whole book impossible to put down, I actually had coffee in a Ruston Pointe coffee shop today and looked at the surrounding in a completely new light. Corporate Greed changed generations (and wiped out many as well)

Washington’s dark secrets

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The story was riveting and jaw dropping

I know so much considering geographics and the research

Fully entertain ed

A title worth a rabbit hole😁

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The storytelling would’ve been great, but of course we’re beat over the head with ‘serial killers are made…by lead and arsenic poisoning, so it’s the mine’s fault’. While this isn’t said specifically, it’s veiled every way imaginable. While the mines were unquestioningly guilty of poisoning people so flagrantly, it should be considered murder; getting the feeling nearly every other minute that the same toxins was what created every murderer. That they would’ve been upstanding citizens otherwise is a ridiculous take by people who believe that people are inherently good, when an ounce of (un)common sense would prove the opposite.
The coup de gras for this book was bringing republican environmental destruction into it at the end by planning to re-open some old mines. We all know if this were done, there would be EPA regulations till the cows come home. But forget that; let’s not open the mines to produce the building blocks of our society. But never is there an alternative to this. Fossil fuels and raw materials is what the world runs in right now; electric, solar, wind, hydrogen, and all others can’t even begin to take that over. But let’s not let reality get in the way of being a social justice warrior.
Complain all you want, but if you’re going to cry about change, provide a solution with all the whining.
Pathetic

Snowflakes gonna snowflake

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This book was stunning. The education alone worth the read. The combined stories, brilliant. I’ll read again for sure. I’m already recommending to friends

Riveting.

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Murder, especially serial murder occupies the top rank of aberrant behavior. But how well do we understand it, *really*?

The author observes that there has been an unusually high concentration of serial killers who have come out of the Pacific Northwest, that many of them grew up in close proximity to each, and committed their heinous deeds within a compressed time interval—within twenty five years of WWII.

Was this coincidence, or was there something else at play? The author argues that this particular region of the country, owing to large-scale and poorly regulated industrial activity-was awash in toxic substances. Everyone was exposed, including, of course, children, and exposure had a deleterious influence on developing minds and bodies.

Though I regard the author’s hypothesis as speculative, I give the book high marks because I think we get closer to the truth of human behavior if we view it through an organic lens. I’ll leave the matter of the existence of good and evil for you to ponder on your own, but I do aver that there is such a thing as a diseased mind.

An Important Book

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Strange hypothesis that serial killers emerge from industrially polluted environments—far too many lengthy pollution tech descriptions renders the book impossible to enjoy unless you are very into STEM details.

I disliked the over-abundance of STEM industrial pollution details SO MUCH that after fast-forwarding I had to stop listening to the audio all together.

Nicely written in the beginning—poetical prose style—then the weird thesis that Bundy and the Green River killer became serial killers during to Seattle-region’s smelting and other industries.

Narrative moves away from say Bundy’s family history (interesting) to how the Guggenheim pacific NW polluting industries “created” the PAC NW serial killers —a ridiculous hobby horse in my opinion.

The PAC NW is a sportsman’s paradise with endless remote wilderness areas where bodies can be discarded never to be recovered—there’s that.

Serial killers are or have operated or are operating throughout the Americas from urban, suburban, rural, and wilderness locales, etc.

Anyway—NOT recommended and The NY Times recommended this book did feel that I very much wasted my $$ on this one and will be mistrustful of Times recommendations in the future.

Strange hypothesis that serial killers emerge from industrially polluted environments.

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The book was interesting until it got political. Nice try but I'll never be a liberal democrat or vote for one.

The author of this book is trying to connect toxic environmental factors for producing serial killers. I disagree with her conspiracy theory and believe it has more to do with living in an environment of gross negligence and extreme abuse of the child for creating a serial killer. Furthermore, child abuse awareness and laws implemented to protect the child may have been responsible for producing less of them in today's society rather than the author's insinuation of less lead or arsenic levels.

I lived in Washington for over 20 years and watched the demise of paradise happen under progressive liberal democrat led policies. It is my opinion that they are political serial killers of society for allowing murders to roam freely and for supporting drug use.

Toxic

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