Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers - Paperback

by Caroline Fraser (Author)

An Edgar Award winner for True Crime - A National Bestseller - A Washington Post Notable Book - Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Forbes, NPR, Vulture, Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, Slate, Newsweek, New York Post, LitHub, Kirkus Reviews, and The Nerve - A finalist for the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

"Scorching, seductive . . . A superb and disturbing vivisection of our darkest urges." --Los Angeles Times

"This is about as highbrow as true crime gets." --Vulture

"Fraser has outdone herself, and just about everyone else in the true-crime genre, with Murderland." --Esquire

During the 1970s and 1980s, the Pacific Northwest became associated with a disturbing concentration of serial rape and murder. Ted Bundy was its most infamous figure, but he was far from alone. What conditions surrounded this terrible period—and why did the apparent wave of serial violence eventually recede?

Caroline Fraser, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Prairie Fires, combines true-crime history, memoir, environmental investigation, and social analysis to examine an era often reduced to sensational headlines and criminal mythology.

Following the paths of Bundy, the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, Charles Manson, and others, Fraser looks beyond the perpetrators to the damaged landscapes in which many of them lived. Her investigation considers the industrial smelters that released lead, arsenic, copper, and other toxins across communities throughout the American West.

Murderland explores Fraser’s provocative hypothesis that environmental contamination may have contributed to the social and neurological conditions surrounding some perpetrators. The result is a broader examination of violence, industrial neglect, public health, and the lasting cost of treating both people and places as disposable.

KEY FEATURES

• True-crime and social-history investigation

• Focuses on serial violence in the Pacific Northwest and beyond

• Examines the era of Ted Bundy and other notorious offenders

• Connects criminal history with environmental destruction

• Investigates industrial pollution across the American West

• Combines memoir, history, reporting, and cultural analysis

• Challenges sensationalized serial-killer mythology

• Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Caroline Fraser

• Paperback edition

PEOPLE & CASES EXAMINED

• Ted Bundy

• The Green River Killer

• The I-5 Killer

• The Night Stalker

• The Hillside Strangler

• Charles Manson

• Communities affected by serial violence

• Populations exposed to industrial pollution

THEMES & SUBJECTS

• Serial murder and sexual violence

• The Pacific Northwest during the 1970s and 1980s

• Environmental contamination and public health

• Lead, arsenic, copper, and industrial smelters

• Criminal mythology and cultural memory

• Social neglect and institutional failure

• Violence against women

• The relationship between damaged environments and human behavior

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Caroline Fraser is the author of Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, Heartland Prize, and Plutarch Award.

She also wrote God’s Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, the Los Angeles Times, and the London Review of Books.

PLEASE NOTE

• This book discusses serial murder, sexual violence, crimes against women, environmental contamination, and other disturbing subjects.

• The crimes examined involved real victims, families, and communities.

• The proposed relationship between toxic exposure and later criminal behavior is an investigative argument presented by the author and should not be treated as proven individual causation.

• Environmental exposure alone does not determine whether a person will become violent.

• Cover artwork and publisher markings may vary by edition.

• Product colors may appear slightly different due to lighting and screen settings.

• Review the available edition and condition information before ordering.

WHY YOU’LL WANT TO READ IT

Murderland looks beyond the familiar names and lurid folklore to ask a larger question: What was happening to the people, communities, and landscapes surrounding this era of violence? Fraser’s investigation turns true crime into a reckoning with environmental damage, cultural memory, and the shadows left behind when society overlooks both victims and poisoned places.

PRODUCT TYPE

Paperback True-Crime and Social-History Books