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The Craigslist Murders
“A brilliantly prophetic and modern tale of the macabre . . . A novel that roars across the intersection of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho and Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities .”
—James Wolcott, Vanity Fair columnist
Unleashing the pent-up fury most Americans feel over the financial crisis, Brenda Cullerton’s wickedly riotous tale of an interior “desecrator” turned murderess is a flaming arrow into the dark heart of Manhattan’s filthy rich.
Working on New York’s Upper East Side for phenomenally rich and frighteningly skinny women who are suffering from BBS (Birkin Bag Syndrome—a muscle ailment due to carrying heavy pocketbooks) has driven interior designer Charlotte Wolfe mad. It seems to her that the insatiable pursuit of luxury breeds monsters. She gets even angrier when she begins to encounter the same thing over and over these women are so cheap they go on Craigslist to sell things their husband kept from wife number one.
As the financial crisis escalates and Charlotte’s own resources dwindle, her rage leads her to not only bite the well-manicured hands that feed her, but to do something more—to really clean house. A razor-sharp satire that’s both laugh-out-loud funny and edge-of-your-seat suspenseful, The Craigslist Murders will inspire readers to cheer an unlikely heroine, whose nightmares are the stuff of a poor person’s dreams.
—James Wolcott, Vanity Fair columnist
Unleashing the pent-up fury most Americans feel over the financial crisis, Brenda Cullerton’s wickedly riotous tale of an interior “desecrator” turned murderess is a flaming arrow into the dark heart of Manhattan’s filthy rich.
Working on New York’s Upper East Side for phenomenally rich and frighteningly skinny women who are suffering from BBS (Birkin Bag Syndrome—a muscle ailment due to carrying heavy pocketbooks) has driven interior designer Charlotte Wolfe mad. It seems to her that the insatiable pursuit of luxury breeds monsters. She gets even angrier when she begins to encounter the same thing over and over these women are so cheap they go on Craigslist to sell things their husband kept from wife number one.
As the financial crisis escalates and Charlotte’s own resources dwindle, her rage leads her to not only bite the well-manicured hands that feed her, but to do something more—to really clean house. A razor-sharp satire that’s both laugh-out-loud funny and edge-of-your-seat suspenseful, The Craigslist Murders will inspire readers to cheer an unlikely heroine, whose nightmares are the stuff of a poor person’s dreams.
219 pages, Paperback
First published October 27, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
March 3, 2011
On paper I don't think this is a novel I should really enjoy. It's kind of like chick-lit but where the protagonist instead of being too wrapped up in her job, getting on in her 30's, single and the best hope for a relationship is a kind of distant prince-charming is all of these things plus a person whose main hobby is trawling through craigslist looking expensive items being sold on the Upper East Side by trophy wives so she can kill them with a fireplace poker (there is probably a better term for this item, but you probably know what I'm talking about).
But as you can see by my four-star rating I enjoyed this book quite a bit.
I have to admit though that some of my enjoyment to this American Psycho-lite satire (yes American Psycho is a satire and yes, there might be some misogynistic elements in it (in which one? I guess in both since this is all violence on women, done by another woman) but one doesn't cancel out the other and this book is very un-nauseating in the murders and there are no habit-trails used and sadly no one eats a chocolate covered urinal puck (how is that scene not satire??)) comes from the novel being about killing rich people, something that has a certain titillation to me. Besides the base enjoyment in seeing rich assholes get it ($40,000 dollars for curtain rods? Half a million for a toilet? Seriously, how can anyone not want to stab someone in the eye who would spend that kind of money on those kind of things (I have to assume that these aren't exaggerations, but maybe they are but I'm sure they aren't that exaggerated if they are)), I had a very personal enjoyment in the book because for about 80 percent of the novel (broken down to 18 percent of the start of the novel when I didn't know the fact I will mention after this oh, so, necessary parenthetical break, and 2 percent at the very end of the novel when I found out that I had actually been mistaken of the fact because I was assuming something that could have been true but wasn't) I believed that the main character could have been someone I went to high school with in New Jersey. This made my reading experience so much more wonderful than it would have been if I wasn't deluded into thinking that this person could have been one of the Benetton shirt, Guess? jean, and five Swatches on a wrist wearing teased hair girls that I sat in classes with from 6th through the start of 10th grade. The idea that one of these rich girls could turn into a serial killer was such an awesome thought, I even had picked out the one that I thought most likely ironically delightful as a serial killer and based most of my image of the character off of her. See, this could have been the case, that the fictional character could have gone to high school with me, first off she is the same age as me and her family lived in Alpine, NJ--a very little and very very rich town just over the George Washington Bridge that has a grammar school but shared a middle school and high school with the only very rich town that I grew up in (for the record, the town was situated like a bowl with the downtown in the valley and on the West and East sides of the town were hills. One of the hills was considered much more wealthy than the other side. I lived on the not so wealthy side. My ninth grade health class was informed by my teacher (who also taught us that she was the type of woman who liked anal sex (why do you need to tell ninth graders that?)) that there were exceptions but generally there were better people living on the rich side of town versus the poorer side. This is exhibit A for my hatred of the rich. Also for the record my family was probably lower-middle to the low end of middle class at the time, my experiences in this town make me very sensitive to being thought mistakenly for having ever been better off class-status wise than I really ever was). The particular girl that I pictured as a future fictional serial killer would have been the type that had the choice between a brand new BMW or a brand new Porsche when she turned 17. She would have also gotten a second brand new car of her choice if she happened to wrap the car around a tree while probably high blitzed on coke, since that is what her brother had gotten when he wrecked his car (and this wasn't an anomaly family either, BMWs and Porches seemed to be given away for birthdays as an almost expected gift among a certain group of people in this town). I really got joy out of thinking that this type of person would end up driving a sharp piece of metal through women's heads to avenge for the guilt she herself felt at the vacuum of substance her life had become.
In the end though I found out the character in the book went to a posh private school though and she wasn't one of the plebeian rich that I felt personally alienated from.
Should I talk about the book? It's fun and it's disgusting, but not in a gore type way, the disgusting part is the way that the rich come up with to spend their money. I'm fairly certain I'd pull a Sylvia Plath with the oven if I ever got to the point where I felt I just had to spend the type of money the people in this book spend on trivial trinkets and bullshit. How do these people not get so disgusted with themselves that they don't just end it all. How can they think that they are really worth the amount that they have?
Wealth is an obscenity!
But as you can see by my four-star rating I enjoyed this book quite a bit.
I have to admit though that some of my enjoyment to this American Psycho-lite satire (yes American Psycho is a satire and yes, there might be some misogynistic elements in it (in which one? I guess in both since this is all violence on women, done by another woman) but one doesn't cancel out the other and this book is very un-nauseating in the murders and there are no habit-trails used and sadly no one eats a chocolate covered urinal puck (how is that scene not satire??)) comes from the novel being about killing rich people, something that has a certain titillation to me. Besides the base enjoyment in seeing rich assholes get it ($40,000 dollars for curtain rods? Half a million for a toilet? Seriously, how can anyone not want to stab someone in the eye who would spend that kind of money on those kind of things (I have to assume that these aren't exaggerations, but maybe they are but I'm sure they aren't that exaggerated if they are)), I had a very personal enjoyment in the book because for about 80 percent of the novel (broken down to 18 percent of the start of the novel when I didn't know the fact I will mention after this oh, so, necessary parenthetical break, and 2 percent at the very end of the novel when I found out that I had actually been mistaken of the fact because I was assuming something that could have been true but wasn't) I believed that the main character could have been someone I went to high school with in New Jersey. This made my reading experience so much more wonderful than it would have been if I wasn't deluded into thinking that this person could have been one of the Benetton shirt, Guess? jean, and five Swatches on a wrist wearing teased hair girls that I sat in classes with from 6th through the start of 10th grade. The idea that one of these rich girls could turn into a serial killer was such an awesome thought, I even had picked out the one that I thought most likely ironically delightful as a serial killer and based most of my image of the character off of her. See, this could have been the case, that the fictional character could have gone to high school with me, first off she is the same age as me and her family lived in Alpine, NJ--a very little and very very rich town just over the George Washington Bridge that has a grammar school but shared a middle school and high school with the only very rich town that I grew up in (for the record, the town was situated like a bowl with the downtown in the valley and on the West and East sides of the town were hills. One of the hills was considered much more wealthy than the other side. I lived on the not so wealthy side. My ninth grade health class was informed by my teacher (who also taught us that she was the type of woman who liked anal sex (why do you need to tell ninth graders that?)) that there were exceptions but generally there were better people living on the rich side of town versus the poorer side. This is exhibit A for my hatred of the rich. Also for the record my family was probably lower-middle to the low end of middle class at the time, my experiences in this town make me very sensitive to being thought mistakenly for having ever been better off class-status wise than I really ever was). The particular girl that I pictured as a future fictional serial killer would have been the type that had the choice between a brand new BMW or a brand new Porsche when she turned 17. She would have also gotten a second brand new car of her choice if she happened to wrap the car around a tree while probably high blitzed on coke, since that is what her brother had gotten when he wrecked his car (and this wasn't an anomaly family either, BMWs and Porches seemed to be given away for birthdays as an almost expected gift among a certain group of people in this town). I really got joy out of thinking that this type of person would end up driving a sharp piece of metal through women's heads to avenge for the guilt she herself felt at the vacuum of substance her life had become.
In the end though I found out the character in the book went to a posh private school though and she wasn't one of the plebeian rich that I felt personally alienated from.
Should I talk about the book? It's fun and it's disgusting, but not in a gore type way, the disgusting part is the way that the rich come up with to spend their money. I'm fairly certain I'd pull a Sylvia Plath with the oven if I ever got to the point where I felt I just had to spend the type of money the people in this book spend on trivial trinkets and bullshit. How do these people not get so disgusted with themselves that they don't just end it all. How can they think that they are really worth the amount that they have?
Wealth is an obscenity!
May 29, 2011
In the "Thanks" section at the end of this book, Cullerton writes:
"[Thanks] to the seventy-eight editors/publishers who turned this book down."
If I was an editor/publisher, I would have been number seventy nine. This book had such inconsistent, garbled character development (if any) that I couldn't identify with the main character, Charlotte, on any level. Supporting characters - her Russian love interest, her mother - seemed to fall out of the sky and into certain scenes just because Cullerton needed more characters. Frankly, none of them were WORTH mentioning. They in no way aided in Charlotte's development, or were even vaguely interesting by themselves.
As well, it's a "thriller". And by "thriller", we mean two pages of haphazard stabbing and then 60 more pages of yada yada blah blah blah. I only finished this book just to see how Cullerton would end it. That, too, was overwhelmingly disappointing. It seems like no one bothered to edit the book, and grammar/punctuation errors were glaringly apparent in every chapter.
Don't waste your time.
"[Thanks] to the seventy-eight editors/publishers who turned this book down."
If I was an editor/publisher, I would have been number seventy nine. This book had such inconsistent, garbled character development (if any) that I couldn't identify with the main character, Charlotte, on any level. Supporting characters - her Russian love interest, her mother - seemed to fall out of the sky and into certain scenes just because Cullerton needed more characters. Frankly, none of them were WORTH mentioning. They in no way aided in Charlotte's development, or were even vaguely interesting by themselves.
As well, it's a "thriller". And by "thriller", we mean two pages of haphazard stabbing and then 60 more pages of yada yada blah blah blah. I only finished this book just to see how Cullerton would end it. That, too, was overwhelmingly disappointing. It seems like no one bothered to edit the book, and grammar/punctuation errors were glaringly apparent in every chapter.
Don't waste your time.
July 28, 2011
I don't know what it's called when you put sentences together like this but within two little Kindle pages, we have the following:
"Rolling her neck to loosen the kinks, Charlotte lingers by the kitchen window and watched a cruise ship slip beneath the Verranzano Bridge."
"Pulling on her old shearling jacket and pocketing the piece of paper with Amy's cell phone number, Charlotte fumbled around in the hall closet."
"Tying the laces of her sneakers, Charlotte avoided looking near the fireplace."
"Closing the door and locking it behind her, Charlotte ran for the elevator."
It's excessive use of whatever that technique is. It makes me feel violent.
Earlier in the book, I read:
A teenage boy with huge wooden plugs in his earlobes sat sprawled in the chair next to her. The skin of the lobe had stretched so much, the flesh seemed to drip, like clocks in a Dali painting.
"Hey, lady," the boy said, tugging hard on his ear when he caught her staring. "You want the name of the guy put these in?"
No one with big lobes would ever say that.
The title is interesting. The image on the cover is interesting. The book is so poorly written, it was making me angry. "Reading barely more than a quarter of her book, she stopped before she had to stab a bitch."
"Rolling her neck to loosen the kinks, Charlotte lingers by the kitchen window and watched a cruise ship slip beneath the Verranzano Bridge."
"Pulling on her old shearling jacket and pocketing the piece of paper with Amy's cell phone number, Charlotte fumbled around in the hall closet."
"Tying the laces of her sneakers, Charlotte avoided looking near the fireplace."
"Closing the door and locking it behind her, Charlotte ran for the elevator."
It's excessive use of whatever that technique is. It makes me feel violent.
Earlier in the book, I read:
A teenage boy with huge wooden plugs in his earlobes sat sprawled in the chair next to her. The skin of the lobe had stretched so much, the flesh seemed to drip, like clocks in a Dali painting.
"Hey, lady," the boy said, tugging hard on his ear when he caught her staring. "You want the name of the guy put these in?"
No one with big lobes would ever say that.
The title is interesting. The image on the cover is interesting. The book is so poorly written, it was making me angry. "Reading barely more than a quarter of her book, she stopped before she had to stab a bitch."
November 2, 2011
I happened to pick up an ARC of this at the ALA conference this past spring, and I finally got around to reading it. I have to say that I didn't much care for it, alas.
The subtitle bills it as "a satire," but it's really more of a post-recession revenge fantasy. The main character, a Manhattan interior designer, takes out her repressed rage against her clients and the world they inhabit by murdering overprivileged women that she meets through the "for sale" section on Craigslist. This much is made clear in the first five or ten pages -- although the title might mislead someone, in no way is it a mystery.
To me, it felt woefully underwritten. None of the supporting characters are more than ciphers with one or two traits; even Pavel, the token love interest, fails to make much of an impression. The conflict with Charlotte's former best friend, Vicki, feels oddly superficial, and the struggle between Charlotte and her mother is halfheartedly hinted at through most of the book, before it explodes into one of the most ridiculously overwrought denouments I've read in ages. The whole last 30 pages, actually, is pure dime-novel, and was really what made me drop my rating from two stars to one.
All of these things could be forgiven if the book were at all funny. After all, something written as a satire doesn't necessarily need well-rounded characters or a realistic plot. But I only chuckled a few times during the whole book. Likewise, if it had something incisive to say about social values and mores, it might work. But the targets are far too easy and too clumsily handled. You mean some multimillionaires are guilty of not caring about other people? Conspicuous overconsumption is bad? The mind boggles.
Of more interest is the notion that simply rubbing shoulders with these people and this mileu is poisonous, that it can corrupt anyone simply through proximity -- a notion that the ham-handed epilogue makes very obvious. However, in order for this to work, Charlotte has to at least start out as a sympathetic character. With the exception of the few flashbacks to her childhood, I thought Charlotte was dislikable throughout, and so the path that her character trod never achieved much interest to me.
With bank bailouts, skyrocketing unemployment, and the ever-increasing divide between the richest of the rich and everyone else, there's plenty of material for an incisive, savage satire. I'm afraid this isn't it though. Pass.
The subtitle bills it as "a satire," but it's really more of a post-recession revenge fantasy. The main character, a Manhattan interior designer, takes out her repressed rage against her clients and the world they inhabit by murdering overprivileged women that she meets through the "for sale" section on Craigslist. This much is made clear in the first five or ten pages -- although the title might mislead someone, in no way is it a mystery.
To me, it felt woefully underwritten. None of the supporting characters are more than ciphers with one or two traits; even Pavel, the token love interest, fails to make much of an impression. The conflict with Charlotte's former best friend, Vicki, feels oddly superficial, and the struggle between Charlotte and her mother is halfheartedly hinted at through most of the book, before it explodes into one of the most ridiculously overwrought denouments I've read in ages. The whole last 30 pages, actually, is pure dime-novel, and was really what made me drop my rating from two stars to one.
All of these things could be forgiven if the book were at all funny. After all, something written as a satire doesn't necessarily need well-rounded characters or a realistic plot. But I only chuckled a few times during the whole book. Likewise, if it had something incisive to say about social values and mores, it might work. But the targets are far too easy and too clumsily handled. You mean some multimillionaires are guilty of not caring about other people? Conspicuous overconsumption is bad? The mind boggles.
Of more interest is the notion that simply rubbing shoulders with these people and this mileu is poisonous, that it can corrupt anyone simply through proximity -- a notion that the ham-handed epilogue makes very obvious. However, in order for this to work, Charlotte has to at least start out as a sympathetic character. With the exception of the few flashbacks to her childhood, I thought Charlotte was dislikable throughout, and so the path that her character trod never achieved much interest to me.
With bank bailouts, skyrocketing unemployment, and the ever-increasing divide between the richest of the rich and everyone else, there's plenty of material for an incisive, savage satire. I'm afraid this isn't it though. Pass.
September 21, 2011
Thirty-seven year old interior designer, Charlotte Wolfe liked making money from her clients but she seemed to hate making overly expensive acquisitions for them, especially the ever-so-ridiculously demanding trophy wives with their me-me, more-more attitudes. In fact, over-the-top wealth and possessions angered Charlotte to the point that sometimes she just had to do something about it; something more than therapy and yoga. She's taken up murdering some of her more blatant clients! How does she decide which ones?
What's known as Upper East Side or UES, the richest 1.8 square miles in the US, as listed in Craig's list is Charlotte's hunting ground. She not only finds some great bargains on upscale merchandise but that's where she finds her victims! Charlotte finds the women she calls are easily duped and let her into their apartments so easily. So far the police have not connected the murders with Craigslist postings. But how long can this go on until something or someone trips Charlotte up?
Charlotte kind of annoyed me with her judgemental attitude and feeling that she could just knock off any uber-wealthy wife she felt needed killing. She thought she was doing them a favor. When the story revealed that Charlotte had grown up in a wealthy family with an emotionally demeaning mother, my sympathy for her started to grow a little. Not that I could condone her actions but the revelations made her more understandable.
Brenda Cullerton writes an entertaining, satirical look at today's wealthy, their entitlement beliefs and how by acquiring more material goods and constantly remodeling their outrageous homes is how they "re-invent" themselves. There is really not much of a mystery to the book; it's more a character study and how, if and when Charlotte will get caught. I really liked the twist at the end that bumped up my rating from 2.5 to 3***.
A review copy of the e-book was provided by NetGalley.
August 2, 2011
The Craigslist Murders reads like the bastard lovechild of American Psycho and Sex and the City, with a modern-day, homicidal, poker-wielding Lily Bart as a heroine. Charlotte Wolfe makes her living as an interior decorator to the disgustingly rich. She spends her working hours sourcing ever more ludicrously expensive fixtures and fittings and objets d’art for a network of clients rolling in more wealth than they could ever possibly figure out how to spend. Then in her spare time she likes to wind down and work out some pent-up rage by browsing Craigslist for rich socialites offloading their unwanted luxury merchandise, followed by bashing their heads in with a metal poker.
I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy this book at first, until I figured out just how far the author’s tongue was planted in her cheek. Then I just sat back and let myself be pulled along on the witty and satirical ride through Manhattan’s more affluent streets, while Charlotte dealt with her group of shallow, unpleasant, overprivileged friends/clients, did her best to steer clear of her appalling mother, and indulged in a mini murder-spree on the side. Initially I found Charlotte rather annoying, and wanted to tell her to get a clue and stop hanging out with all the self-absorbed uber-rich people if she found them that unbearable. But as the story progressed, I must admit she grew on me. She became more sympathetic as it became clear why she was so messed-up, and besides, I finally started to “get” her sense of humor. There was a little twist at the end that gave me a HUGE chuckle, although I won't go into it here as it would be unforgiveably spoilery.
This was an entertaining and fun read - definitely one worth picking up!
I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy this book at first, until I figured out just how far the author’s tongue was planted in her cheek. Then I just sat back and let myself be pulled along on the witty and satirical ride through Manhattan’s more affluent streets, while Charlotte dealt with her group of shallow, unpleasant, overprivileged friends/clients, did her best to steer clear of her appalling mother, and indulged in a mini murder-spree on the side. Initially I found Charlotte rather annoying, and wanted to tell her to get a clue and stop hanging out with all the self-absorbed uber-rich people if she found them that unbearable. But as the story progressed, I must admit she grew on me. She became more sympathetic as it became clear why she was so messed-up, and besides, I finally started to “get” her sense of humor. There was a little twist at the end that gave me a HUGE chuckle, although I won't go into it here as it would be unforgiveably spoilery.
This was an entertaining and fun read - definitely one worth picking up!
October 29, 2016
This was an awful read. I don't think I'll even be able to form full sentence explanations for WHY I hate this book, I'm just going to list them:
1. Please don't get me started on the punctuation and grammar. Missing periods and quotation marks, run on sentences that didn't even make sense had they been proper length, all the "clever" words she made up to describe things/people... just, why? This book made me miserable.
2. She's supposed to be a serial killer, but she was just completely unrealistic. You would think that writing a book from the perspective of a serial killer would SEEM like it's the perspective of a serial killer...but no. She described all of these things that made her seem like a deranged person, but it never felt like she was actually deranged. That doesn't make sense, but what I'm trying to say is you would think it'd be easy to make someone sound unhinged if they're murdering people, but the author wasn't even able to properly convey that!! Her being a murderer seemed like a whole separate thing.
3. The blurb on the back. What? This isn't even accurate to what happens in the book???
4. SHE MURDERS ALL OF THESE WOMEN AND THEN GETS AWAY?? AND THEN GETS MARRIED??? AND IS NOW PREGNANT??? Please save us all from such awful novels, please...please.
I can't even continue right now. I'm getting worked up.
Save yourself time and money and do not read this book.
Wait, there was one thing I liked about the book. That part at the end where she thanks the company that published her book, and mentions that 78 other editors/publishers wouldn't publish it (but why ever not????). That part was the best in my opinion.
1. Please don't get me started on the punctuation and grammar. Missing periods and quotation marks, run on sentences that didn't even make sense had they been proper length, all the "clever" words she made up to describe things/people... just, why? This book made me miserable.
2. She's supposed to be a serial killer, but she was just completely unrealistic. You would think that writing a book from the perspective of a serial killer would SEEM like it's the perspective of a serial killer...but no. She described all of these things that made her seem like a deranged person, but it never felt like she was actually deranged. That doesn't make sense, but what I'm trying to say is you would think it'd be easy to make someone sound unhinged if they're murdering people, but the author wasn't even able to properly convey that!! Her being a murderer seemed like a whole separate thing.
3. The blurb on the back. What? This isn't even accurate to what happens in the book???
4. SHE MURDERS ALL OF THESE WOMEN AND THEN GETS AWAY?? AND THEN GETS MARRIED??? AND IS NOW PREGNANT??? Please save us all from such awful novels, please...please.
I can't even continue right now. I'm getting worked up.
Save yourself time and money and do not read this book.
Wait, there was one thing I liked about the book. That part at the end where she thanks the company that published her book, and mentions that 78 other editors/publishers wouldn't publish it (but why ever not????). That part was the best in my opinion.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 15, 2014
I received a free digital copy through Net Galley.
"Charlotte had been getting away with murder for years." That's the opening line of this book, and it successfully drew me in. Then I met Charlotte: a woman just as shallow and whiny as the women she loathes! I wanted to like this one; I really did. But that just didn't happen. I was expecting a fun read with some dark humor, but all I got was a self-absorbed, interior decorator irritating the heck out of me for 200+ pages. Even after her "breakthrough" with her therapist, I just could not bring myself to care about Charlotte or her terrible past. I can't honestly recommend this book, but I'm sure someone out there may enjoy it more than I did.
"Charlotte had been getting away with murder for years." That's the opening line of this book, and it successfully drew me in. Then I met Charlotte: a woman just as shallow and whiny as the women she loathes! I wanted to like this one; I really did. But that just didn't happen. I was expecting a fun read with some dark humor, but all I got was a self-absorbed, interior decorator irritating the heck out of me for 200+ pages. Even after her "breakthrough" with her therapist, I just could not bring myself to care about Charlotte or her terrible past. I can't honestly recommend this book, but I'm sure someone out there may enjoy it more than I did.
August 16, 2012
While not totally unbearable to read, the book was ultimately disappointing. The book was very jumpy, it didn't give me any sense of time or direction. The ending was really abrupt, left out so many details that could have enhanced the book as a whole. I found myself struggling through the middle waiting for it to really pick up but was greeted with more ramblings that left me wondering where it was going which was nowhere. I think it had a lot of potential to be a great book but was let down.
January 19, 2019
The worst book I've read so far this year (okay, so 2019 just started and that's not saying much), but I suspect the even in December, this one will still rate as the worst of the year (at least I hope the rest of my choices are better). I had to laugh at the end when the "Thank you" note mentioned that 78 publishers had turned the author down. I can completely understand their sentiment. Perhaps if the author had put half the effort into editing the story that she did into trying to get it published, she'd have found more publishers interested in her offering.
August 22, 2011
Too much whining and designer name-dropping
no-thank-you
February 8, 2013It really was only a matter of time...
May 9, 2018
Interior designer Charlotte Wolfe has dealings with the most unbelievably difficult clients in the upper strata of New York. She also comes from a difficult history with her own family. Every woman in upstate New York reminds her of her own mother. Not in a very good way. And what does she do to deal with these women living in their own personal make belief bubbles? She murders them.
As a mystery, there's really not much mystery surrounding this particular book. You know who the perpetrator is, you know who the possible victim pool is, the mommy issues are pretty much evident. It ends up classifying more as a chic lit than an actual mystery.
It can be quite entertaining in bits. The entire "bimbo"ness of the wives of the billionaires, their complete obliviousness of what is going on in the world, and their make belief problems, make for quite the laugh. However, while most chic lit books are entertaining all the way, this particular book, since it tried to be an out of the way mystery novel, failed to be gripping or entertaining, and turned out to be quite a drag.
The idea of finding the victim pool through Craigslist was great and innovative. However the execution for some odd reason didn't play out as well as it maybe should have.
Should one give it a read? As a light read, sure, why not. But don't expect too much of it.
April 17, 2021
With all of the negative reviews of this book, I thought that I wouldn't be able to finish. But it actually wasn't that bad. I found the book a quick read and somewhat entertaining. I enjoyed the insight into the world of the ridiculously rich and having lived in NYC, I could appreciate many of the scenes described.
June 12, 2022
A decorator brought up in wealth has the need to murder other rich women. her past plays a part in her fetish. This was an enjoyable read, clean and with interesting language.
July 4, 2022
Really dark and twisted, but interesting being inside the mind of a female serial killer. This was well done, but I feel like I can't give it more stars because of how morbid it was. 😅
July 15, 2023
It was just a meh book. I feel like it was trying hard to be American Psycho with a dash of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, but it fell very flat in my opinion.
July 31, 2011
With a real life Craigslist murderer, I was curious to see how a writer would handle incorporating Craigslist into a series of murders. The main character is a seriously broken woman who lives in the world of the rich and famous because she works for them; we learn later that she actually grew up on this world which had a direct impact on why she is how she is. In addition to being a skilled interior decorator, she is a complex person trying to handle her past and present demons while always being in control. Being in control and doing what is the right thing to do bring her to a decision to put her victims out of their misery. She sees them as women who are miserable - she's doing them a favor by ending their misery.
Throughout the book you switch back and forth between the past and the present, learning of her upbringing with a mother for whom society came first, and her present where the one man she is drawn to because he makes her feel safe has a mysterious other life which could ruin hers. Even though she believes what she is doing is noble and correct, she can't seem to tell her best friend, this special man or her shrink.
As a reader, you find yourself sympathizing with several of the challenges in her life. No child should suffer emotional trauma as she did - but is it an excuse for any of her negative actions? How would we react to clients and wealthy friends who call at all hours demanding that we fix whatever issues they find a hinderance? One client wants to move her brand new infinity pool 10 feet to the right so it "doesn't block the view." Another client wants to put prison toilets into several of her newly decorated bathroom so they will be easier for the help to clean. She has to justify a $100 dry cleaning bill for curtains worth thousands. She points out that most of the time the hardest decisions these uber-wealthy women have is whether to wear Prada or Gucci and where to lunch each day. Of course, may of them hardly eat anyway so they can keep their looks and their new husbands, she points out. This is an unusual book where great beauty is appreciated for what it is, as well as for what it costs.
I recommend it simply because it brings the readers into a world very few will live in - the very wealthy and the interior designers who work for them. It's hard to feel true sympathy for any of the characters because of their major flaws, which is why I kept reading. I wasn't bored with the story, I just couldn't connect with any of the characters, which is something that I couldn't recall happening before when reading a book of fiction or nonfiction.
Throughout the book you switch back and forth between the past and the present, learning of her upbringing with a mother for whom society came first, and her present where the one man she is drawn to because he makes her feel safe has a mysterious other life which could ruin hers. Even though she believes what she is doing is noble and correct, she can't seem to tell her best friend, this special man or her shrink.
As a reader, you find yourself sympathizing with several of the challenges in her life. No child should suffer emotional trauma as she did - but is it an excuse for any of her negative actions? How would we react to clients and wealthy friends who call at all hours demanding that we fix whatever issues they find a hinderance? One client wants to move her brand new infinity pool 10 feet to the right so it "doesn't block the view." Another client wants to put prison toilets into several of her newly decorated bathroom so they will be easier for the help to clean. She has to justify a $100 dry cleaning bill for curtains worth thousands. She points out that most of the time the hardest decisions these uber-wealthy women have is whether to wear Prada or Gucci and where to lunch each day. Of course, may of them hardly eat anyway so they can keep their looks and their new husbands, she points out. This is an unusual book where great beauty is appreciated for what it is, as well as for what it costs.
I recommend it simply because it brings the readers into a world very few will live in - the very wealthy and the interior designers who work for them. It's hard to feel true sympathy for any of the characters because of their major flaws, which is why I kept reading. I wasn't bored with the story, I just couldn't connect with any of the characters, which is something that I couldn't recall happening before when reading a book of fiction or nonfiction.
August 26, 2014
Charlotte, an interior designer goes around tracking down her potential rich and ungrateful victims on Craigslist. She kills them with a poker when she goes to their million dollar homes on the pretense that she is going to be buying whatever they are selling.
Charlotte has issues. Her mother was cruel to her growing up, is still cruel to her as an adult, and this is why Charlotte has turned against wealthy and spoiled women. Her mother is one such person. Very briefly, here and there, we get a glimpse into her childhood and what took place, and in the present day of her (lack of) relationship with her mother dying.
I feel this story could had been written better, as it did have a good story line, but unfortunately, fell short. I especially felt that way in the last chapter. It all of a sudden wrapped up, 18 months later, and I was wondering who I was reading about for around 2 or 3 pages before I realized it was Charlotte. So I reread it again, knowing it was about her. I felt very disappointed in the way it ended.
Early on in the story, page 16, was the dead giveaway of Charlotte eventually being caught (or is she?) when a friend notices her bracelet and asks where she got it from? "Craiglist", replied Charlotte. Brenda Cullerton is definitely no Agatha Christie! I knew right there that's what she would be busted on.
Another moment in the story that popped out to me, and was also early in the book on page 21. Charlotte is in a newscafe, and "a teenage boy with huge wooden plugs in his ear lobes sat sprawled in the chair next to her. The skin of the lobe had stretched so much, the flesh seemed to drip, like clocks in a Dali painting." Where does Brenda Cullerton come up this stuff? Oh dear! Let's carry on in what happens next, "Hey, lady," the boy said, tugging hard on his ear when he caught her staring, "You want the name of the guy put these in?" Yeah, cause that pleasant conversation would really happen right?
Charlotte has issues. Her mother was cruel to her growing up, is still cruel to her as an adult, and this is why Charlotte has turned against wealthy and spoiled women. Her mother is one such person. Very briefly, here and there, we get a glimpse into her childhood and what took place, and in the present day of her (lack of) relationship with her mother dying.
I feel this story could had been written better, as it did have a good story line, but unfortunately, fell short. I especially felt that way in the last chapter. It all of a sudden wrapped up, 18 months later, and I was wondering who I was reading about for around 2 or 3 pages before I realized it was Charlotte. So I reread it again, knowing it was about her. I felt very disappointed in the way it ended.
Early on in the story, page 16, was the dead giveaway of Charlotte eventually being caught (or is she?) when a friend notices her bracelet and asks where she got it from? "Craiglist", replied Charlotte. Brenda Cullerton is definitely no Agatha Christie! I knew right there that's what she would be busted on.
Another moment in the story that popped out to me, and was also early in the book on page 21. Charlotte is in a newscafe, and "a teenage boy with huge wooden plugs in his ear lobes sat sprawled in the chair next to her. The skin of the lobe had stretched so much, the flesh seemed to drip, like clocks in a Dali painting." Where does Brenda Cullerton come up this stuff? Oh dear! Let's carry on in what happens next, "Hey, lady," the boy said, tugging hard on his ear when he caught her staring, "You want the name of the guy put these in?" Yeah, cause that pleasant conversation would really happen right?
August 9, 2011
This was another galley given to me by the kind folks of Melville House Publishing. The Craigslist Murders is murder straightup – we have Charlotte, the murderer by night and interior decorator by day. In between tracking down antiques for her incredibly wealthy clients, she’s hunting Craigslist (like EBay) for young, society wives selling things and then kills them. (Why rich society wives are selling things on the internet I’m not sure, but I guess we can blame the recession).
Rather than being a portrait of a cold blooded killer, this book is witty and draws parallels with Sex in the City at times. Set in New York with another Charlotte (albeit with a different personality than the other one) and a lot of designer items are mentioned by name, it has that guilty but good feeling. However, it’s hard to link interior designer Charlotte with murderer Charlotte. It seems quite disjointed at times and I wondered if this was intentionally so to expose a personality disorder in Charlotte or if the author wanted the reader to like Charlotte and feel sympathy for her. Although we find out Charlotte’s backstory in pieces, I don’t think it was strong enough to justify her murders. There was a certain glamour aspect to this book though – whether from the brand names or the style, I’m not sure – as well as a bit of a Hitchcock feel.
The ending of this book is excellent and somewhat unexpected. It was the last thing I was thinking of to happen! If you’re squeamish, this is a better crime fiction book for you as it’s not graphic in its descriptions.
A quick and easy read – an interesting topic with a twist, as the story is told by the murderer herself. A good debut by Brenda Cullerton.
Rather than being a portrait of a cold blooded killer, this book is witty and draws parallels with Sex in the City at times. Set in New York with another Charlotte (albeit with a different personality than the other one) and a lot of designer items are mentioned by name, it has that guilty but good feeling. However, it’s hard to link interior designer Charlotte with murderer Charlotte. It seems quite disjointed at times and I wondered if this was intentionally so to expose a personality disorder in Charlotte or if the author wanted the reader to like Charlotte and feel sympathy for her. Although we find out Charlotte’s backstory in pieces, I don’t think it was strong enough to justify her murders. There was a certain glamour aspect to this book though – whether from the brand names or the style, I’m not sure – as well as a bit of a Hitchcock feel.
The ending of this book is excellent and somewhat unexpected. It was the last thing I was thinking of to happen! If you’re squeamish, this is a better crime fiction book for you as it’s not graphic in its descriptions.
A quick and easy read – an interesting topic with a twist, as the story is told by the murderer herself. A good debut by Brenda Cullerton.
December 24, 2013
There's a tantalizing touch of irony in the title the Craigslist Murders, since this superbly-paced serial killer story takes place in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the world among characters so rich they need neither to buy nor to sell anything through that internet flea market to get what they want. As written by Brenda Cullerton (a New York based writer for the interior design industry), this unconventional crime novel is an engrossing exercise in satire and psychology, set in the apartments and homes of investment bankers and models living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It's there that successful interior decorator Charlotte Wolfe looks through Craigslist ads trying to find ones placed by trophy wives selling luxury goods who she then kills with a poker. She claims she is liberating these women from their gilded cages and never steals more than a trinket from their luxurious homes. Charlotte's childhood memories with her cold, distant and status seeking mother factor into the book's darkly comic mood and complex emotional landscape; this is a book in which past and present are inseparably intertwined, and motivations remain rooted in the past, making it all the more interesting when buried truths are revealed. In addition to being a biting and caustically satirical portrayal of the Upper East Side and it's denizens, the Craigslist Murders includes some inside information on the world of interior decoration, like how to spot a fake antique, and many smart remarks about the way we live now like "Parents didn't know how to say 'no' anymore. They didn't dare. Only children did." This short, diverting novel, while it isn't the best serial killer book you'll ever read, has some funny and true things to say about the super super rich.
July 27, 2011
The Craigslist Murders is an intriguing read in which interior decorator Charlotte Wolfe has reached her breaking point. Literally. Charlotte comes to define the Upper East Side, which she characterizes as "The richest, greediest 1.8 square miles in the United States" (p. 51) as her kill zone. Specifically, when either one of her often utterly unredeemable clients or her equally hateful mother crosses one too many lines, Charlotte trawls through Craigslist to identify a stand-in for those folks--some UES put upon woman who is divesting herself of some formerly essential treasure (e.g., monogrammed silver, Vuitton luggage, vintage couture) who she then carefully and somewhat ritualistically dispatches.
What I particularly enjoyed about the book is the fact that it's the sort of murder plot where you know who the killer is from the start as she's your narrator. Thus, it's less about the murders than the sociological insights into the privileged upper class whiners who our protagonist decides to assist in their journey as they shuffle off this mortal coil. While she's none too likeable herself, and we do come to see that Charlotte has survived a particularly hurtful childhood and ongoing complicated relationship with her unloving mother, Charlotte's insights are very astute and the reader is more a fly on the wall than complicit in her actions. A great summer read, to be sure!
What I particularly enjoyed about the book is the fact that it's the sort of murder plot where you know who the killer is from the start as she's your narrator. Thus, it's less about the murders than the sociological insights into the privileged upper class whiners who our protagonist decides to assist in their journey as they shuffle off this mortal coil. While she's none too likeable herself, and we do come to see that Charlotte has survived a particularly hurtful childhood and ongoing complicated relationship with her unloving mother, Charlotte's insights are very astute and the reader is more a fly on the wall than complicit in her actions. A great summer read, to be sure!
July 5, 2011
"Charlotte had been getting away with murder for years. Most interior decorators-desecrators, she called them-got away with murder."
So opens the satirical murder spree through New Yorks Upper East Side.Wicked, delightfully evil and so much fun. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry...or buy a fireplace poker and a yoga matt and join Charlotte in her quest. Both cynically funny and edge of the seat suspenseful reading. Probably the only crime story you'll read this year that involves a yoga matt, Birkin Bag Syndrome and Private Jet Neck Syndrome. You have to be filthy rich to get those afflictions. "It was almost funny, that the most selfish people on the planet did nothing but talk about empathy." And Charlotte Wolfe was moved to do something about it.
Charlotte is on a mission to rid the planet of these women that live in a world that mistook trend for truth, fame for faith and money for meaning. It was a land of the professional time-killer where a woman's only job was to amuse herself to death. Oh yeah. And to redecorate. So Charlotte hunts the women whose daughter think it is fashionable to have anorexia and shop lift books on Buddhism, freeing them from a useless and empty life as Charlotte sees it. She is doing them a favor.
"The Craigslist Murders" is such a fun read. A fresh voice in the world of crime fiction that I sincerely hope to hear more from.
So opens the satirical murder spree through New Yorks Upper East Side.Wicked, delightfully evil and so much fun. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry...or buy a fireplace poker and a yoga matt and join Charlotte in her quest. Both cynically funny and edge of the seat suspenseful reading. Probably the only crime story you'll read this year that involves a yoga matt, Birkin Bag Syndrome and Private Jet Neck Syndrome. You have to be filthy rich to get those afflictions. "It was almost funny, that the most selfish people on the planet did nothing but talk about empathy." And Charlotte Wolfe was moved to do something about it.
Charlotte is on a mission to rid the planet of these women that live in a world that mistook trend for truth, fame for faith and money for meaning. It was a land of the professional time-killer where a woman's only job was to amuse herself to death. Oh yeah. And to redecorate. So Charlotte hunts the women whose daughter think it is fashionable to have anorexia and shop lift books on Buddhism, freeing them from a useless and empty life as Charlotte sees it. She is doing them a favor.
"The Craigslist Murders" is such a fun read. A fresh voice in the world of crime fiction that I sincerely hope to hear more from.
July 26, 2016
Come rovinare una buona idea con un finale troppo semplicistico. Charlotte è una trentasettenne in guerra con le ricchissime bionde patinate dell’upper east side, descritte come inutili soggetti di cui il mondo farebbe meglio a liberarsi”. Charlotte interpreta alla perfezione il ruolo di angelo vendicatore, l’unica ad avere il coraggio di mettere in pratica quello che “personal trainer, arredatori, stilisti e fisioterapisti di Manhattan sognano ogni giorno della loro vita”. Cioè uccidere le loro dispotiche, viziate e superficiali clienti.
La personalità della protagonista è complessa, disturbata, ossessiva. Eppure, in qualche modo, non sono riuscita a prendere le sue parti, né quelle delle vittime. Forse perché, in qualche modo, siamo tutti vittime e carnefici allo stesso tempo?
Poi, nel finale, l’autrice inciampa vistosamente su una conclusione improbabile. Peccato.
La personalità della protagonista è complessa, disturbata, ossessiva. Eppure, in qualche modo, non sono riuscita a prendere le sue parti, né quelle delle vittime. Forse perché, in qualche modo, siamo tutti vittime e carnefici allo stesso tempo?
Poi, nel finale, l’autrice inciampa vistosamente su una conclusione improbabile. Peccato.
March 1, 2011
okay I feel like I've been grouchy in my reviews lately and I want to stop that. This books had it's highs and it's lows, there was one glaring editing error, but that will be fixed before it's published I'm sure.
I think the idea is neat, I never know how much credit to give the author, but here it seems like the satire is solidly layered. I mean Charlotte is everything she hates, but she thinks she's above it. She's projecting all these horrible traits onto these women, many of which she has or her mother has to an overpowering level. I also think there is an interesting question of whether she might be going crazy? I mean can we believe some of the stories she's telling us.
A weird tidbit outside the book: Female serial killers mostly do it out of revenge.
There are let downs in the book, the romance plot serious holes, it seems like an after thought, it might be, it's not that important so who cares.
ummm... that's all go book.
hopefully greg will review this too.
I think the idea is neat, I never know how much credit to give the author, but here it seems like the satire is solidly layered. I mean Charlotte is everything she hates, but she thinks she's above it. She's projecting all these horrible traits onto these women, many of which she has or her mother has to an overpowering level. I also think there is an interesting question of whether she might be going crazy? I mean can we believe some of the stories she's telling us.
A weird tidbit outside the book: Female serial killers mostly do it out of revenge.
There are let downs in the book, the romance plot serious holes, it seems like an after thought, it might be, it's not that important so who cares.
ummm... that's all go book.
hopefully greg will review this too.
Read
September 6, 2011I can't even really figure out what is going on here. Charlotte, an interior decorator to the absurdly uber-rich, likes to murder the uber-rich women who live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and hunts her victims by Craigslist, the US-based online classifieds community. As we join Charlotte in her crazy (seriously) life, she is fondling a fancy Hungarian piece of chinaware and preparing to batter her latest victim with a fire poker, instead of buying an eighteen-carat bracelet from her.
So far, so farcical, right? Except it's not funny. Charlotte is bitter, has mother issues, steals from her clients (who are admittedly, quite bizarre. Who has a $300,000 paddling pool built for their dog and then wants it shifted ten feet to the right?) and is a serial killer. She's also morosely single, cynical, looks down on everybody from her best friend to her newest client.
One for fans of Nick Hornby with a macabre twist. I think.
So far, so farcical, right? Except it's not funny. Charlotte is bitter, has mother issues, steals from her clients (who are admittedly, quite bizarre. Who has a $300,000 paddling pool built for their dog and then wants it shifted ten feet to the right?) and is a serial killer. She's also morosely single, cynical, looks down on everybody from her best friend to her newest client.
One for fans of Nick Hornby with a macabre twist. I think.
April 1, 2012
"Who's killing Manhattan's trophy wives?"
Cullerton's The Craigslist Murders is hilarious and a little scarey too. The protag's a psychopath, an interior designer who's filled with anger at her wealthy, exacting and nutcase clients. Charlotte Wolfe trolls Craigslist, enchanted with the mundane and the ridiculous, looking for just the right Upper East Side woman dumping something desireable. That's Charlotte's in of course, a meet to look at the goods with cash in hand and a poker rolled up in a yoga mat. And that's the end of another filthy rich, unhappy woman. Charlotte's totally in the right, and doing her a favor in ending her life.
Picked up this quick read at Auntie's Books in Spokane, Washington of all places. A nice find in a good indie bookstore in a wonderful town.
--Ashland Mystery
Cullerton's The Craigslist Murders is hilarious and a little scarey too. The protag's a psychopath, an interior designer who's filled with anger at her wealthy, exacting and nutcase clients. Charlotte Wolfe trolls Craigslist, enchanted with the mundane and the ridiculous, looking for just the right Upper East Side woman dumping something desireable. That's Charlotte's in of course, a meet to look at the goods with cash in hand and a poker rolled up in a yoga mat. And that's the end of another filthy rich, unhappy woman. Charlotte's totally in the right, and doing her a favor in ending her life.
Picked up this quick read at Auntie's Books in Spokane, Washington of all places. A nice find in a good indie bookstore in a wonderful town.
--Ashland Mystery
July 9, 2017
Ugh, not good. Once again, I expected great things because of the riveting name.
The first shock to me is that it's a novel. For some reason I just thought it would be real? It's fine. It's not. But if you have free reign on how awesome to make a story, why is this one so bad?
The character was never, at any point, likable. And an antihero is great in some cases, but this one wasn't even interesting. It's about a pretty, rich lady with lots of talents and a bad attitude. For some reason, she hates other pretty rich ladies. It's not entirely clear why.
I don't feel like it ever really resolves. It's like it's trying to be Gone Girl but it's not and it's bad. And there's a note at the end, sort of blowing a raspberry at the many publishers who didn't want to print her book, and that sort of made me feel bad about giving a bad review... but nah. It's not good.
The first shock to me is that it's a novel. For some reason I just thought it would be real? It's fine. It's not. But if you have free reign on how awesome to make a story, why is this one so bad?
The character was never, at any point, likable. And an antihero is great in some cases, but this one wasn't even interesting. It's about a pretty, rich lady with lots of talents and a bad attitude. For some reason, she hates other pretty rich ladies. It's not entirely clear why.
I don't feel like it ever really resolves. It's like it's trying to be Gone Girl but it's not and it's bad. And there's a note at the end, sort of blowing a raspberry at the many publishers who didn't want to print her book, and that sort of made me feel bad about giving a bad review... but nah. It's not good.
August 28, 2011
Oddly, I didn't find a point in this book, but I finished it to the end. So, Charlotte is a homicidal interior designer with great tastes. She hates all of the rich people who be fulfilled just with what they have, so she finds ways to murder them. All this was inspired by a dark childhood past, and that just basically sums everything up. Oh, and the ending was similar to the overrated slasher films where the final scene is where killer comes back from the dead, overused, and no imagination necessary to think about what happens next.
August 16, 2014
This was a great book that dealt with a woman who is an interior decorator that caters to the very rich. For a hobby she likes to go on Craiglist under an alias and act like she likes certain items and wants to purchase them, but goes over to kill women. It kind of drove me crazy because all the women in the book were very rich and could never be happy unless they paid a lot of money for something that they'll never actually use. It did get very intense towards the end and you won't be able to put it down.
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