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 Scary Exciting

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

Meticulously Researched • Compelling Narrative • Brilliant Connections • Important Revelations • Lyrical Writing
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Society has worked so hard to get past this and we are now poised to return.

The obvious.

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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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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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Outstanding while difficult, painful. Trigger warnings apply on historic violence. Proved me ignorant on things I should have been aware of.

History meets health and values

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Fascinating story!! Narrator mispronounced "Leschi, Willamette, and Vashon" each time they were read. that is the only reason for the 4. Seattle locals would have caught all of these. Regardless, if you like history, maps, and true crime, you should read this

Fascinating story!!

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Intense, thorough, and contextualized through personal narrative, Murderland follows the parallel lines of smelting pollution and the (over)abundance of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest. I'm not going to outline it here because Fraser does it brilliantly, but this is a tight, tense, retelling that simultaneously reads like a list of crimes and a work of art. Fraser never lets the murderers off the hook, be they man or corporation, and she never lets up on the gas. Fraser follows all the heavy hitters of the Golden Age of the Serial Killer through the lens of rampant corporate industrial waste. Who's the worst offender? The rich fat cats who made millions and poisoned millions more? Civil authorities who buried reports? The men who snuffed out all those innocent lives to feed their own sick lust? Yes to all of that. I couldn't put it down.

The "true crime" is what we did to the environment

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Convincingly links the rise and number of serial killers in the PNW with industrial pollution. It makes me fear what is to come given the current political situation.

Fascinating and heartbreaking

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Fascinating, thought-provoking, and at times thoroughly disgusting. I’ve read some reviews that say even though little evidence is presented in this book, it’s a great read. WHAT? NO EVIDENCE? Did we read the same book?

I would say the evidence is extremely strong that the prolific serial killers from the Pacific Northwest rose out of the slag heaps and air stack emissions of lead and arsenic and other poisons that financed the wealth of industrial barons. Do we have to be hit over the head to see the evidence right in front of us?

Makes me wonder what horrors plastics and other favored pollutants of today are doing to our bodies and minds.

FASCINATING! HORRIFYING! COULDN’T STOP LISTENING.

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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 writing and narration of this book is excellent. I immediately bought her other book, Prairie Fires. The case the author makes for heavy metal pollution being the major cause of extreme aberrant criminal behavior in the 1960s through the 1980s in the US is very persuasive.
I will never again hear the name Guggenheim without thinking about their companies poisoning thousands of people over decades with complete impunity. You think the Sacklers are corporate criminals? They are amateurs compared to Aramco and the companies profiled in this book.
That said, think hard about whether you can tolerate hearing in brutal graphic detail what serial killer sexual sadists like Ted Bundy did to hundreds of women and children. The descriptions of violence are relentless and sickening. Even if you are a regular reader of true crime the cruelty of the murders in this nonfiction book will make you want to wretch. Maybe the author could also write an edited version? This should be excerpted for podcasts, newspapers, magazines. The story, and the outrage and political action these revelations should generate in all of us, is incredibly important.

Bleak, horrifying, persuasive

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