Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers

by Caroline Fraser

“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 readers 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

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, History, Audiobook, Crime, Science, Memoir

Audible Audio

First published June 10, 2025

About the author

Caroline Fraser was born in Seattle and holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University in English and American literature. Formerly on the editorial staff of The New Yorker, she is the author of two nonfiction books, God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church and Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution, both published by Henry Holt's Metropolitan Books.

She has written for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic Monthly, Outside Magazine, and The London Review of Books, among other publications. She has received a PEN Award for Best Young Writer and was a past recipient of the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writer's Residency, awarded by PEN Northwest. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her husband, Hal Espen.

Reviews

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The City of Tacoma's Tourist Board is not going to recommend Murderland by Caroline Fraser, but I sure as hell am. I hesitate to put too much of the book's contents into this review. None of it is really spoiler territory, but I didn't know how the book would fully unfold when I started it, and I'm glad I didn't. So let me give two reviews. A short one for those who are already intrigued, and then a longer one for those on the fence.

For the intrigued, Fraser's book looks at the intersection between murder, industry, memoir, and history. There are a lot of serial killers in this book, but if you go into this looking for a normal true crime narrative, then you will be hopelessly lost and confused. It is much more than that, and is written with nontraditional flow and exceptional skill. Fraser's Pulitzer win for her previous book was clearly not a fluke. I was trying to think of a good metaphor, but Fraser beat me to it in the introduction. This book is like the crazy board you see on TV with a multitude of pictures and notes with string all over the place. However, Fraser isn't crazy. Everything has a purpose even when it seems like it doesn't. I'm talking about bridges, but you won't know what I mean by that until you start reading. If you are ready to do that, stop reading this review and go read the book. Enjoy!

Still not sure? Well, let's dive in then. True crime aficionados will notice very quickly that Fraser is making the connection between serial killers and the lead-crime hypothesis. For the uninitiated, there is a prevailing theory that excessive levels of lead in the environment, tied to both leaded gasoline and uncontrolled smelting, led to increased violent crime across the board. There are many examples, but the apex predator of this story and who fits the theory perfectly is Ted Bundy.

Fraser doesn't just dive into the theory and start ranting about industry. (For the record, that approach would have bored me.) Instead, she slowly peels back the (lead) onion by recounting numerous serial killers from their origins to their despicable crimes. Mostly, this focuses on the Pacific Northwest where Fraser herself grew up. Her own life took her within yards of many of these killers throughout her childhood. Generally, I hate when authors insert themselves unnecessarily. Here it works because Fraser's life is troubled, but it grounds the reader. Not everyone is a serial killer, but it doesn't mean non-killers are having an easy time. (I mean, I assume Fraser is not a serial killer, but that would be one hell of a reveal!)

Returning to my comment about it not being traditional true crime, Fraser does not spend much time with the victims or even the killers. Each story is short and clipped. It may just be my reading of it, but I think Fraser wrote it this way to mimic the slow poisoning of people in the shadow of a smelter. No single story goes on long enough to shock you into putting the book down. Instead, the horror accumulates until you are left sad and, more importantly, angry. Again, just a guess, but the final page of the book certainly suggests Fraser was going for outrage. She succeeded.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and The Penguin Press.)

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was not for me. After a while I found myself skim skim skimming to see if there would ever come a time when Caroline Fraser would stop with this dense thickety intertwining of murder, memoir, industrial history and her incessant Theory of Lead And Arsenic Poisoning, which is, that it infects the brains of certain men and helps to turn them into serial killers, and since the North West of the USA was awash with the stuff in the 60s to 80s, this accounts for the extraordinary number of serial killers operating in that part of the world, in that time.. And for all I know that might be true but the Big Theory was hammered so much it was a case of enough with the lead poisoning, alright, I believe you, stop….

Other factors were in play, of course. The liberalisation of ordinary social behaviour gave these horrible men a limitless supply of victims – hitch-hikers, sex workers, free spirited young people out past their bedtimes.

And the lack of the Big Three innovations in detection which have shut down contemporary would-be serial killers : CCTV, mobile phones and their attendant cell towers (ever vigilant, ever smiling) and of course DNA DNA DNA.

You don’t have to write true crime books in a plain no-frills just-the-facts style – others that don’t include As If by Blake Morrison, Ghettoside by Jill Leovy, Going Postal by Mark Ames and the amazing Happy Like Murderers by Gordon Burns. I see most of the reviews of Murderland love it, so you may too, but I didn’t.

Three stars for the obvious enormous work that went into this big book.

[Katerina · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a long one – apologies in advance!

I'll start by acknowledging that this author has previously won a Pulitzer Prize and recognize the hard work that went into this substantial book. However, this. ain't. it.

This book was never marketed as a memoir, yet the author's personal life and experiences are woven throughout. I have nothing against memoirs, but I want to know I'm reading one when I pick it up. The author's personal anecdotes add nothing to the narrative or her theory about lead causing violence.

Several reviews praise the author's incredible writing and prose. However, this parataxis style is exhausting and awkward to read. I did enjoy how she captured the eeriness of the Pacific Northwest in the first chapter, but the book also includes countless sections about Tacoma's structurally unsound bridges. Why?

The entire book is predicated on the author's theory that lead in the air and other fumes are why the PNW has so many serial killers. This theory has major flaws and the author offers zero empirical evidence that lead caused the PNW's serial killers.

Second, there's no comparison of serial killer numbers between the PNW and other regions. How can she claim significantly more active serial killers existed there without this comparison? She even stretches her argument by including individuals not from the area (like Dennis Rader), tying them to places with heavy traffic or lead exposure, which invalidates her own PNW-specific argument.

The idea that serial killers stopped in the 80s because lead was eliminated makes no sense. There are numerous other factors that could explain the decrease: DNA technology, enhanced surveillance, better investigative tools, etc. This theory feels as flimsy as Peter Vronsky's suggestion that World War II caused post-war serial killers.

And speaking of, the author cites Vronsky's claim that 750 serial killers were active in 1980s. But how do you define serial killers? If you use the basic definition of three or more kills, sure. But the author's theory concerns psychosexual serial killers—a very specific type, not just anyone who's killed three people. A drug lord or mob member might kill more than three people for business, but they're psychologically different from Ted Bundy. She's discussing violence associated with personality disorders and paraphilias yet fails to make that distinction. Am I supposed to believe lead exposure creates necrophiles? According to the author, yes, apparently. She states that Bundy and others “have spent quality time in Tacoma, a place where paraphilias flourish like fungi.” No evidence is cited to support that claim either.

The author also perpetuates problematic serial killer myths. She insists Ted Bundy was attractive and a smooth talker. If Bundy was such a smooth talker, why did he need to pretend to be injured to get women to help him? Also, the unibrow—need I say more? 😒

She includes Israel Keyes, born in 1978, which undermines her own theory. If serial killers decreased as lead was phased out by the 1980s, how does someone born in 1978 support her lead theory?

Were there no other countries—especially industrialized nations—where people were systematically exposed to lead and other substances she mentions? Where are all the serial killers in those regions? She mentions Peter Sutcliffe briefly, but that's it. If the theory was sound, where are all the Australia, USSR, and other serial killers??

This quote particularly annoyed me: "The CDC doesn't know it, but functional derangements caused by lead are being seen all over the country, wherever men are repeatedly beating, raping, strangling, stabbing, and smothering women and children, as if compelled by some force as implacable as gravity."

This exemplifies another major issue: the author toys with the idea that serial killers are "insane" (using this legal term incorrectly—it means someone didn't know right from wrong). All the men she describes knew right from wrong.

There's also a common denominator she missed: violence against women and misogyny. Does lead make you a misogynist?

She also offers the example of the McDonald's mass shooter James Huberty, noting that "an analysis of his hair at autopsy reveals extraordinarily high levels of lead and cadmium... Cadmium, like lead, is associated with violent behavior." So even if you buy the premise that lead in the PNW creates serial killers, now we're claiming lead creates mass shooters too. Is ALL violence because of lead?

Finally, regarding all the author's anecdotes about men born in high lead concentration areas: what about the girls? Did they not breathe the same air? Why was it only men who became serial killers?

The confidence displayed in such a flimsy theory is baffling.

[Lottie from book club · Rating 5 out of 5]

everyone I've spoken to in the past week has been sold this book, at length. I doubled my reading time every evening by re-reading huge chunks out loud to my wife. I read it on the bus, I read it while walking to work, I read it standing up at the kitchen island waiting for the kettle to boil. it blew the top of my head off - like Mount St Helens.

part true crime, part environmental history, part memoir, part horror novella about a malevolent bridge, all woven together as a nonfiction thriller. in a book that catalogues - without flinching - the deeds of Bundy, BTK, the Green River Killer, Israel Keyes, and a frightening number of other Pacific Northwest-based murderers that I'd never heard of, the passages that really make your blood run cold are about smelters, lead-poisoned babies, and arsenic in the groundwater. corporate serial killers. evil men weighing profits against lives. it will make you so fucking angry that dipping back in with Ted Bundy is a break.

this is my book of the year. calling it now, 17th of January.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is the subject matter interesting? Sure. But is it long-winded and dense? God, yes.

The hypothesis here (from what I can parse out because it’s never really stated) is that, due to increased lead exposure and/or living adjacent to a major fault line, the Pacific Northwest became a hotbed of serial killing. But it’s really just side-by-side timelines of serial killers and the smelting industry. With random tidbits of historical events thrown in for context of the time. Why did the author describe her life in the area? WHY DO WE LEARN SO MUCH ABOUT BRIDGES?

I like the overall idea behind this but the writing style is just not conducive to making the points Fraser wants to make. The hypothesis is more scientific in nature but Fraser approaches it from a sociological viewpoint and it doesn’t really work. I think this would’ve been better off as an article or other short-form work - expanding this to be over 400 pages was drawn out and unnecessary.

Thank you to NetGalley, Caroline Fraser, and Penguin Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Jenna (out touching grass & tech detoxing!)]

DNF somewhere between 20-30%. I grew up in a very environmentally contaminated industrial area that is still popping up on top sites of concern lists regularly today. So, perhaps my cognitive abilities were impacted by my formative years, but this (audio)book made me feel absolutely insane and frustrated because it read to me like the author dropped the manuscript pages on the floor and then gathered them up at random and bound them. After a strong intro, we talk for a tiny bit about the contamination of the Pacific Northwest region, then it’s on to bridges and car accidents, then we have a minute or two about young Richard Ramirez and his family (in Colorado and Texas?), more bridges and car accidents I think, then the author as a child watching the funeral parade of the Apollo 1 astronauts on TV, then the characters and puppets on childhood TV shows she liked, then we have about two minutes of Ted Bundy, one of whose victims had sort of the same hair color as the author as a child, even though it’s kinda weird because they were both blonde when the killer often targeted brunettes, but luckily one of the killer’s victims wasn’t hurt as badly as possible because she was wearing curlers, and also the author’s dad had a really bad temper when she was a kid - at this point my brain exploded and I gave up.


There is a lot of this anecdotal stuff about the author’s childhood woven throughout, and I agree with other reviews that when it comes to true crime, authors (unless they were very close to the victims) should adhere to “It’s not (about) me, it’s (about) you (aka, them: the victims and their survivors, in this case of interpersonal, corporate, and environmental violence).” It seems extremely self-indulgent and disrespectful to center oneself in a narrative account of a tragedy that directly impacted others, and this has become such a common approach.


The topic for this book was already complex and ambitious to tackle and there is absolutely no need for this musing, abstract and wandering, personalized narrative. I was expecting fact-based, hard-hitting, focused investigative journalism about corporate pollution, particularly in a certain US region, and its links to human neuropsychological health and violent crime. Maybe that’s the last 70% of the book, but I’m out of patience. Everyone adores this book, I understand she’s a respected Pulitzer Prize winner, and I just read a reverent NYT review, and I’m positive it will probably go on to win accolades too, but it’s not for me.

[Barbara K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Update: Here’s an article exploring the subject of serial killers in the Pacific NW. It’s a reasonable analysis of how the “population dynamics and vulnerabilities” of the area may have contributed to the seemingly high rate of serial killers operating there..

Article in Medium by Stacy Watts from May 28, 2023, 2 years before this book was published.

My review of this book:
Living in an age of conspiracy theories, most specifically the vaccine-autism connection, has made me suspicious of universal explanations for medical mysteries. “If we just change this one thing, we will have solved the autism/Alzheimer’s/Parkinson’s/whatever problem.”

Reading Caroline Fraser’s book Murderland was an education for me in many ways, not least in how seductive such theories can be if they are well presented.

Fraser’s thesis is that exposure to industrial pollution, most often lead and arsenic, led to the abundance of serial killers operating in the US during the 1970’s and 1980’s. Both elements have been tied to neurological deficits of varying kinds, including a propensity for violence. She sees this most clearly in the Pacific Northwest, home ground for Ted Bundy, The Green River Killer, and many others.

Fraser was raised outside of Seattle, not far from Tacoma, where a smelter owned by Asarco dominated the skyline and the air quality, both visually and olfactorily. Hence the moniker, “Tacoma Aroma”. She weaves through the book her personal story of growing up there, her life dominated by her devoutly Christian Scientist father.

Aside from the main topic of pollution, other topics explored by Fraser contribute to an aura of unease. The local government on Mercer Island, where she lived, developed a tolerance for a high number of highway deaths related to treacherous conditions on the floating bridge that connected it to the mainland, rather than replace it with a better design. Geology is another part of this tension, with Mt. St. Helens and the Juan de Fuca plate constantly menacing.

She goes into detail describing the history of mining and smelting, from the earliest Guggenheim and Rockefeller robber baron days, to contemporary efforts to avoid responsibility for the toxic environments they have created. Think “Sackler family” or “tobacco industry”. Same old, same old.

And then there are the serial killers themselves. Fraser creates a bio sketch for each of them, documenting their connections to deadly mining or smelting locations during their youth, and then painstakingly describing their stomach-churning crimes. Honestly, I could have done without all that detail. I assume she included it in order to highlight what she sees as the horrific outcomes when white collar criminals put a dollar value on possible settlements with individuals sickened by their toxic output, and decide they can afford the cost.

I don’t know what to think about her argument that once smelting became unprofitable and leaded gas was outlawed violent crime rates declined. The numbers prove her right, but is it correlation or causation? There many other explanations for this change, and certainly not every man who grows up in a lead-filled environment becomes a serial killer.

But Fraser is a top notch author of narrative non-fiction, and that makes the book special. She’s previously won a Pulitzer for
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and she’s brought the same skills to this. It’s one of those books that seemed like a quick read, even though it’s over 400 pages.

One caveat (in addition to the violence trigger warning): The story jumps around in time, place and characters, which was distracting until I decided not to worry about which serial killer’s story we were picking up again after a digression to other topics. I usually figured it out in a few paragraphs, and truly, their gruesome crimes began to blend together after a while.

[Nevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book wasn’t at all what I expected! The author did a great job of explaining how the environment was polluted by industrial factories and how residents were affected, however didn’t quite explain why only men were affected and not so much women! All the serial killers that came from that area are only men. Odd!!!

Plus, I am sooo sick and tired of Ted Bundy… Enough with that monster 🤮

Happy Reading 🍷

[Tammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can we put a stop to the trend of authors adding themselves to nonfiction works? I don't care if you grew up in the Pacific Northwest unless you met or interacted with a serial killer I don't know how your upbringing is supposed to be relevant. I had the same problem with A Good Bad Boy. The book is trying to make a case for lead and arsenic poisoning contributing to the number of serial killers. I don't think the case was successfully made. It is horrific to go over a lot of the killings and abuse committed by these men. The innocent lives lost and the bodies that have never been recovered for the families to have closure is heartbreaking.

[Jillian B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why were there so many serial killers concentrated in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s and 80s? The author of this book makes the bold argument that the neurological impact of heavy environmental pollution might be a root cause. She traces this story through the 20th century, interweaving her own experience growing up just outside Seattle in the serial killer era.

I found the author’s thesis both provocative and totally plausible, and I like the way the story was laid out as a linear timeline. I also liked the way she talked about how families that made their fortune in heavy polluting industries, like the Guggenheims, have laundered their reputations in recent generations through contributions to the arts, much as Purdue Pharma’s Sackler family did.

I didn’t love reading the descriptions of all the crimes. I am not a true crime girly, and reading about so many murders and rapes was not fun for me. However, as someone born in 1990, reading about the sheer number of random kidnappings and murders that occurred when boomers were young gave me empathy for all the parents who sparked panic about “stranger danger” when my generation was growing up. When they were young, strangers really WERE dangerous!

Overall, this was a tremendous work of narrative journalism that will appeal even to those who, like me, are not particularly into true crime.

[Francisca Viegas · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @37%

I was really interested to read this one and dive into the author’s thoughts on lead poisoning and the psychological effects it may have had on people who were exposed for years.
What I found was not what I was sold. This could have worked really well if it had been marketed as a portrayal of the 70s and 80s in the PNW and a memoir on the author’s life connecting all pieces.
It was about serial killers, yes.
It was about heavy metal poisoning, yes.
But it was also about the industry manipulation, about the infrastructure of the area, about the author’s life.
I did not want to know about bridges.
I did not want to know about the author’s hard times growing up.
Sorry, it just wasn’t what I came here for.
I feel like the author had a decent idea for a harrowing memoir that would parallel the rising crime at the time, and either she or the publisher tried to sell it as a study on serial killers to make it catchier. There was no investigation. There were “facts” thrown about without proper proof and stats to back them up.
It’s sad because I feel like with some editing and different pitching and marketing, this could have been a really atmospheric memoir that would also touch on the corruption of society and people’s willingness to poison other people for profit without a thought to the ramifications.
Alas, it was not.

[Teresa · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is ALL OVER THE PLACE. Two minutes it’s about the author, then it’s about a serial killer, then it’s about traffic flow on a bridge, then about environmental issues from smelters… PICK A LANE AND STAY IN IT. I don’t get the point of this book at all. Is it biography? Is it about killers? Is it about environmental impact? The fact that it bounces so much means you don’t care about literally anything going on in it. DNF AT 23 percent.

[Celine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murderland is an ultimately beautifully written piece of nonfiction about a wide scope of things, though primarily it is focused on a stretch of time where there was a high number of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest.

Occasionally I felt like the author bit off more than they could chew, which resulted in me struggling to understand how to connect all of the various dots. I think the stuff about bridges could have been snipped, because everything else felt coherently linked, and was executed so well.

I especially loved how the author wove her own life story into the timeline of the serial killers mentioned. Often, when we examine the history of these people, it is displayed as a moment in time, when in fact they exist IN time, along with the rest of us.

I do recommend picking this up, but it isn't something I would recommend trying to binge. It's like watching a true crime documentary series one episode at a time, and really sitting with all of it.

[Strega Di Gatti · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the opening chapters of Murderland, Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Fraser references the "crazy wall" TV trope. A crazy wall is a giant board of maps, photos, notes, and string, designed to visually represent connections made during intense detective work. Crazy walls uncover conspiracies, identify the Big Bad at the center of the crime, and lead to brilliant deductions. Who doesn't love a great crazy wall scene? My expectations were high! Fraser is going to pull from multiple sources to prove her thesis: The Pacific Northwest had so many serial killers in the 70s and 80s because the Pacific Northwest is soaked in lead and arsenic poisoning. Ted Bundy is a killer, but so is The American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO).

I see the vision. It makes sense. "Baby boomers are like this because of lead poisoning" is not a new idea. All Fraser needed to do was show me the "crazy"; let's get into how all these things connect. I'm already on board!

Unfortunately, we don't get to navigate a tangled web in Murderland. Instead, we get four separate narratives that advance in parallel without meaningfully converging. We learn about the history of lead and arsenic manufacturing in Tacoma and other places, we hear about the ill-fated construction of the Lake Washington floating bridge and its murderous reversible lane, we dip into Fraser's unhappy childhood on Mercer Island, and finally, readers survive a never-ending list of rapes, disappearances, and murders committed by multiple serial killers.

These distinct storylines would each make its own book. The audience is left to take generous leaps to connect them. One connecting message is the idea that politicians and corporations put profits over lives. Very true, but not surprising. Joel Bakan's The Corporation did a slam dunk on this 20 years ago. Despite knowing corporations suck, I was still shocked when ASARCO decided to do a cold equation on the lives of the children they poison, reasoning it was cheaper to pay future settlements to families of soon-to-be poisoned kids rather than to reduce their pollution output. Industry's absolutely appalling lack of concern for the environmental impact of pollution on human beings was the big story here, not how close to a smelter Richard Ramirez lived. 

The serial killer chapters were very difficult to read, and I'm a true crime veteran. Most of these crimes are unattributed, so guesswork goes into which of these killers was responsible and what actually happened during the murder. Fraser unintentionally telegraphs what happens in each scene as any time a woman or child was introduced with "long shiny hair parted in the middle" and a full description of her clothing, she was about to die horribly and never receive justice for it. The survivors don't have hair and clothing descriptions, nor do they have the crime against them described with the use of "probably" and "likely". 

I told a friend on the phone, "It's wearing me down to read about dozens of people's last moments before being tortured and murdered" only to realize that by the end of the book it was probably over 100 attacks referenced.

I was hoping to read about the science that connects poisons to antisocial behaviour in men, and it is briefly discussed near the end. As I mentioned, this is a theory backed by research that has been floating around for a while. It deserves a book of its own as Murderland makes it very obvious that in addition to lead exposure, the killers profiled all had traumatic or violent childhoods, enjoyed widespread police incompetence, and lived in the age before digital surveillance. 

As for the prose, well that's what really wins you the Pulitzers! Fraser opens the book comparing a fault line to the slice of a knife across a neck. She really loves referencing the Olympic–Wallowa lineament (OWL) as a menacing force. Such a fine line (no pun) between evocative and cringe.

However, the final chapter where Fraser imagines what the world would be like if we could reverse history was emotional: Close the smelters, fix the bridges, pull the lead from the children, release the victims from their graves and put them safely back at home...Yes, I want that too. :(

Four stars for collecting all the items, even if the crazy wall is missing the string. 

[Jill H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everybody seems to rate this book very highly and I was anxious to read it. Well, guess what? I am in the minority in my opinion. I didn't care for it at all even though there were some interesting sections which squeaked it to a 3 star rating. I am not going to write my complaints about it but will just say that it was not for me.

[Ashley O'Donnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Opportunity arose while I was halfway through reading another novel for me to borrow and quickly read this. They claim men can't multitask and they would be right, turns out I cannot and I've completely neglected the other book to get through this.

It's a strange one if I'm being honest. Author Caroline Fraser puts out a very wild, risky and bold claim that heavy metal is a leading contribution to the rise of serial killer activity (heavy metal as in copper and lead poisoning - not the ear drum bursting sounds of Slipknot).
And I'll give credit to the Pulitzer Prize winning author, she knows her stuff and has researched this meticulously. I cannot deny that she raises many, many important points that quite frankly have been largely overlooked and ignored. But here's the problem I ain't buying it

I found her evidence for showing the dangers of heavy metal pollution to be somewhat undeniable. I think an author of this calibre was always going to be very thorough in her investigation and to a degree she argues many good points and to another degree she does show some correlation between highly polluted towns and the rise of vicious crimes.

But to say that pollution is a LEADING reason as to why there are so many serial killers, well that's a push. You look at any of the serial killers mentioned in this book, whether it be Ted Bundy or The Green River killer Gary Ridgeway, anyone with any knowledge of these guys will already be educated enough to know, that there are many factors as to why they became what they became. Sure, you can lay the claim that they were around pollution - and undeniably pollution can have negative effects on the human body - but I largely look at that claim as nothing more than circumstantial.

I've been around dangerous heavy metals, such as lead and copper but I've never had the urge to punch a grandma in the face. You could prove that all serial killers have come into contact with such pollutants, but it really wouldn't change anything. Because thousands, if not millions have had the same contact with heavy metals, and we don't all go out and murder a prostitute, choke a student, or kick a puppy well I hope we don't - I'm keeping my eye on you
Statistically, if this evidence was undeniable proof, then we would all be serial killers. And . . . Intelligent point about to be made . . why does this environmental factor only largely affect men, and why are the vast majority of victims female.

Rant Over. But I do think this well researched book is definitely worth a read, especially for fans of true crime, and for people who do care about the environment Greta would love this book I think it's written very well, and has a bucket load of information, most of which was new to me. It's respectful to the victims without glorifying the perpetrators of such violent crimes. I also really enjoyed the mash up and the blend of true crime and scientific approach. 

Definitely worth a read. I just think the reasoning as to why these men (and women too - some of you are crazy) commit such heinous crimes lies solely on the individual, and the blame should not point anywhere else. 
3.5/5 I would recommend - it's given me food for thought - but it hasn't changed my opinion.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a groundbreaking book. I had initially passed it over as being "another serial killer book". I am not a fan of the genre. I had just finished a book on the long-term effects of PBB contamination in Michigan. I was perusing books in the local bookstore and read the jacket on this book. Seeing that it was about the link between heavy metal exposure and serial killers, I decided to pick it up.

It is a book that is both about serial killers and environmental contamination. It primarily focuses on Ted Bundy, but it also discusses Richard Ramerez, the Green River Killer, the Smiley Face Killer, the BTK Killer, and Isreal Keyes among others. It is not a scientific book it is a book that details the crimes of these killers and points out their commonality - exposure to lead and arsenic.

The book is written by a woman that grew up in the epicenter of the pollution and where many of the murder victims were dumped. The book is not without its drawbacks. First, it contains a lot of information about the author's relationship with her father but does not link it to heavy metal exposure. Secondly there is much discussion about the bridge across Lake Washington and the deaths that occurred on the bridge, mostly due to the ludicrous idea of reversed lane traffic. I think a whole book could be written on that screwup. I don't see where it fits into this book.

Despite the drawbacks I think this is a very good book. The author presents a theory, not unique, but in a format that will have good market appeal. The other point is the description of the crimes is more detailed than most books on serial killers. If this is a trigger for the reader, perhaps it is a book to be skipped.

This will be a starting point for general discussion on this topic. If you are concerned about long term effects of environmental pollution or why serial killers exist this book is an excellent book to read.

[♡ retrovvitches ♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

i thought i’d like this but tbh it was sorta disappointing :/ i just was not enjoying the topics or the writing for the majority of this book. i’ve had this issue in the past of picking up a non fiction and feeling like the author injected way too much of themselves into a story, and this sorta fell into that category. i didn’t pick this up to read about some specific opinions ya know? but 2 stars because it’s not god awful

[Wendy Darling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever notice that a lot of serial killers hail from the Pacific Northwest? This exhaustively researched book puts forth the theory that environmental factors, specifically lead poisoning, contributed to the creation of Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, Ed Gein, and many other killers.

Pretty convincing stuff, with a history of the industrialization of mining and the horrific effects of pollution on its workers as well as the inhabitants of the towns where factories were based. Many families and children experienced terrible physical, mental, and emotional consequences, plausibly due to the proximity to these areas. It’s fascinating to see the timeline laid out for the environmental factors and historical context woven step by step with various crimes and significant events.

I’d have rated this higher, except:

— it’s a little long
— the occasional fantastical asides don’t really fit the narrative (a sudden Jekyll and Hyde reference irritated me, for example)
— it might be a little more detailed than it needs to be in describing so many crimes, though what’s there is well done; my assumption is most readers coming into this will know a lot of these cases already, and the minute descriptions, particularly the amount of time spent on Bundy, seem a bit excessive at times
— eventually the author’s personal connections (she grew up in the PNW) became intrusive as they kept interrupting the narrative; some of this interesting/fine, but a great deal of it is more personally significant to the author than it is to the reader. I didn’t pick this up because I was interested in the POV of a local and what she was doing as a killer was picking up a girl in his car a few minutes away.

A lot of non-fiction lately seems to suffer from similar issues. If the details aren’t in service of the book as described, or if it’s an anecdote best left to friends or book tours, it can probably be taken out and be better for it.

Still. It’s a great piece of investigative writing and very effective in how it presents crime. Her theory would just be stronger if there weren’t quite so many extraneous details to obscure it.

Audio Notes: Excellent on audio, read by Patty Nieman.

[Jennifer Hughes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unlike Caroline Fraser’s well researched, award winning book “Prairie Fires,” her new book “Murderland” argues that many of America’s serial killers developed their violence and desire to murder from chemical disasters without much direct evidence. The concept is interesting, but the evidence linking environmental disasters to serial killers is minimal - yet treated as a foregone conclusion. It’s an interesting idea, but I would have liked to see more direct evidence.

Fraser also attributes crimes to specific killers that have not been officially connected to them, writing as if the killers had in fact committed the crimes. That seems unethical. In addition, she includes sections where she asks readers to imagine killers acting in certain ways - again without any evidence they actually acted that way.

Finally, the writing could be very interesting, but also confusing. She would talk about different criminals from one paragraph to the next, frequently switching who she was writing about, and it could be hard to follow.

I loved “Prairie Fires,” and I’m really disappointed I didn’t like this book much, especially since it covers so many topics I’m interested in - true crime, psychology and psychiatry, genetics, health, the environment, and the Pacific Northwest.

[Christian Schultheiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a connection, I mean sure it runs parallel a lot of the time but that fascinating map Fraser weaves, portraying the most captivating and simultaneously horrific serial killers and their links and connections to unregulated lead production was beyond eye opening and it really shows the mental disease of it all and I will never fully look at any of these “monsters” in quite the same light. I’m so thankful my wife brought this book to my attention and thank god our has is at least now unleaded. 3.5/5

[Erik B.K.K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whatever Ted is doing in Hoquiam is Ted’s business, but he always buys gas when he’s hunting...


Murderland is the perfect book for feverish, endless summer nights. It will end up as one of the best and most memorable books I've read in 2025. It's so grand, so elaborate, so far-reaching and well researched, never dense or dull, not so much a True Crime book, but a book on the Zeitgeist of the Serial Killer Era, starting in the 60s, throughout the 70s, 80s and ending in the mid 90s. It's a history on the PNW, on Post-War blue-collar America, and on an entire generation being poisoned by corporate murderers, being the smelter and mine companies that cash Big Blood Money over the backs of children and workers knowingly. Nothing is left out. Ted Bundy, Waco, Charles Manson, Galloping Gertie, Mt. St. Helens, Dennis Rader, Watergate, The Guggenheims, The Kennedys... and many more life and world altering events and people, dispersed with compelling bits about the author's own life growing up as the same generation. Caroline Fraser doesn't spare you any tough, gruesome details, but it never becomes sensational or disrespectful (to the victims). I loved her writing style. I wished it would never end. It could have been 300 pages longer and I would have been more than okay with that. Fraser posits a compelling and believable theory on how steady poisoning of lead and arsenic, among other metals and poisonous gasses, lead to the obscene surge of violent crimes and serial killers. I think she's really on to something. That combined with the anonymous, far-stretched back countries and highways of the West Coast, and also the general attitude of the people, the poverty, and the politics from the 50s until the 00s.

An "atmospheric" book, honestly that should be a genre of its own.

Murderland reminds me of a few other books that tackle such a widespread subject and read like a special treat: Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi, The Baader-Meinhof Complex by Stefan Aust and A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan. Books that tried to emulate the same feeling but failed in varying degree: The Nineties by Chuck Klostermann (alright) and Nixonland by Rick Perlstein (bad). But if you loved any of the first 3, you will love Murderland...

[Richard Bankey · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a book authored by a environmental activist that claims to be a book about serial killers. If you want to read about serial killers look elsewhere. 1 🌟

[Lindsey (endless_tbr_list) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Pacific Northwest is known for five things: lumber, aircraft, tech, coffee, and crime."

As someone who loves nonfiction but simply doesn't read it at the same pace as fiction, I knew I was going to rate this one highly when I tore through the first couple hundred pages in a day. Mapping the similarities between the decades of environmental damage being done by smelters, and the astonishing number of serial killers that emerged, Fraser's novel presents an incredibly interesting view of America's Pacific Northwest in the 1970s and 80s. From Ted Bundy to Charles Manson, from The Night Stalker to BTK, a staggering number of the country's most infamous and gruesome killers can trace some part of their roots back to areas where lead, copper, and arsenic smelters were pumping seemingly endless clouds of poison from their stacks.

I loved Fraser's style of writing and the decision to have paragraphs hopping between subjects within the same chapter. It, to me, added a slight bit of uncertainty and chaos - that feeling that you really didn't know what was going to come next with each turn of the page. Additionally, despite its length, Murderland never felt sluggish, dense, or overly or unnecessarily gruesome. However, it never lets you forget that, at it's heart, this it is a book about serial killers.

Murderland is going to be one of those books that sits with me for a long time, with its final line echoing on.

"Now and forever, let it all be over."

[Bethany · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pedantic doesn't cover it. Superfluous use of imagery for scenes that do not relate in any way to a serial killer or lead. I spent an unnecessary time reading about OWL, a man who made countless maps but never received appropriate recognition and bridges. This book lacks industry accepted research methods. In other words, clear data with facts. It assumes that a few men of the PNW were affected by lead poisoning due to unregulated smelting but ignores the rest of the population, especially women, that were present and evidently unaffected. The author inserts herself further creating bias. I was looking forward to a scientifically backed theory by an author vs a researcher but received a novel at best.

[Christopher Febles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fraser is a reporter, but she takes this personally. Anyone who grew up in that time in that place would.

Let’s begin by saying this has ALL the trigger warnings. You should recognize that just from the title alone. That said, the purpose of the gore wasn’t just for shock value: there’s a point to be made about nefarious profiteering, environmental crimes, and governmental impotence.

The Pacific Northwest has a fault line known as the OWL, running in diagonal line through Idaho and Washington. Part of that area, focused on Tacoma and the southlands of Seattle, were the hub of rampant lead pollution courtesy of the smelters that had been operating since the 1890s. And as many of us know, lead poisoning leads to intellectual problems and behavioral issues, particularly in men.

So it’s not, according to this book’s theory, a coincidence to see this area infested with the century’s worst serial killers.

And it was awful. It focuses on Ted Bundy, and I was staggered to realize just how many crimes he committed and how long it took to apprehend him. But Fraser also chronicles many other killers, including those in LA, Texas, and Montana. Goodness: it reads like a horror story, one with a terrible crime on every page.

And they all lived in areas polluted by smelter companies along the OWL. Others might’ve been affected by leaded gasoline, prevalent in the 60s and 70s (thankfully banned by the 90s). Every now and then there’s a segment about corporate neglect, or coverup, or defiance. Lead isn’t such a big deal, they said. Maybe it’s even good for you! Well, now we know better, but Fraser drags out a century of corporate misdeeds. That’s the big point here: companies understood the risks of air pollution but chose profit over people.

Fraser also mentions the faulty infrastructure of the time, in particular the Mercer Island bridge, responsible for many avoidable deaths. She seems to use that as an example not only for the danger, but for the blind, irresponsible grasp for money and progress. She hammers those men, those companies, blaming and cursing them. Her conclusions are solid and hard to refute, and the research reveals a strong intellect.

An interesting note: she tells the story in present tense. “He does” this, “ASARCO decides that.” Took a while to get used to, but I liked that angle.

Incredibly researched and brilliantly presented, even if it’s a gruesome topic. Such a shame.

[Stay · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The world has created me and I am free to do what I want. On death row, asked whether he has regrets, he laughs."

Just like the rest of the world, I am a true crime junkie and I may know too much about these killers. That's okay, we all have to be good at something and this is my thing. At least I'm not in love with these weirdos like some people out in the world.

I was excited to read this because it sounded interesting and something new for the genre. Nothing new will come out about these mostly now passed serial killers, so this was the next best thing. Well, sad to say that this brought nothing new to the table. All I know is that I would never trust this author. That's a story for a different day.

This was interesting to a point but got to be very tedious. I didn't like the writing style and the author highly enjoyed writing about some of these murders. It was creepy. She also pinned some unsolved murders on people when she didn't know for sure who had committed them. They may have happened around the same time but with zero evidence, you have no case. My patience with this book was very thin.

What I liked was the deeper look at Bundy and his very bizarre travels, the story of BTK and his desire to be caught, and we cannot forget Ramírez and his sleeping at the cemetery. Those are the stories I was looking for here but they were few and far between. I wanted the weirdness.

"Murderland' wasn't what I thought it was going to be. Probably something I would never read again.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a mess. It has four distinct narratives: one recounting the meticulous crimes of serial killers, one detailing the pervasive exposure of lead and other harmful chemicals to citizens by greedy corporations, a memoir, and a bunch of facts about dangerous bridges in Washington.

The author suggests that the exposure to lead and arsenic is what caused serial killers to develop…although they never outright claim it. They also do a very poor job of tying the two together and this isn’t a novel idea — Freakonomics covered the decline in lead usage as a factor in falling US crime rates. There is also some suggestions that the combination of lead poisoning and some sort of fault line voodoo is what guides killers? The author goes straight YouTube conspiracy theorist late in the book. Below is a direct quote:

“Run a ruler or a straightedge or a piece of yarn along the OWL. Run it clear down through the country on the diagonal…If you’re an animal on the run and your frontal cortex is picking up weakness in the continental crust, singing sensations of fault zones and hot spots, movements in the lithosphere that ping the lead in your brain and speak to you through the nonunion of your coronal structure, these messages may well urge you to go to the Florida State University campus and kill women.”

The memoir bits add little of any value to the work and seem like the author just using an excuse to vent about their daddy issues. The bridge content has nothing to do with anything else at all. Its inclusion is bizarre. I guess once you win a Pulitzer editors are powerless to reign in your largesse…

[Umar Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

You can divide this book into three parts. Part One is Fraser's crackpot scientific theories straight out of RFKjrLand about pollution causing a spike in serial killings in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s. Who needs a peer reviewed study from scholars when you can get a book deal based on your hot take? That part of the book is a 1 (actually 0, but that's not an option). Part Two is Fraser's biography, in which she comes off as a Boomer with daddy issues and an unlikeable personality. Another 1. Part Three is actually really good and why I finished the book. Her carefully retelling the stories of serial killers and their victims.

If Fraser's unfounded hot take were to be true, my native St. Louis area would surely be crawling with serial killers given the nuclear waste dumped in north county and the led paint in nearly all older homes and apartments.

[jocelyn • coolgalreading]

i enjoyed the overall idea of this and the questions it was asking but the author didn't connect them how it was advertised in the summary imo and the self-insertion was unnecessary