This work of speculative true crime by a Pulitzer Prize winner returns Fraser to the Pacific Northwest where she grew up, a region once known for both its toxic industry including a mammoth copper smelter in Tacoma, Wa. and its serial killers. Fraser provocatively connects the two, tracing suggestive links between the poisoned air, water and soil, and the violence perpetrated by men like Ted Bundy, Charles Manson and Gary Ridgway. The New York Times
In Murderland, Fraser returns to her own native landscape, the Pacific Northwest, to explore why the region has produced such a large number of serial killers. In this brooding and often brave book, the author finds evil afoot, but the worst monsters aren t who you d guess. The Boston Globe
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. Washington Independent Review of Books
[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)
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. Wright Thompson, New York Times bestselling author of The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi
