2nd Floor Conference Room
\nThis mon th we will be reading Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the T ime of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser.
\nCaroline Fraser grew up in the shadow of Ted Bundy\, the most not orious serial murderer of women in American history\, surrounded by his hu nting grounds and mountain body dumps\, in the brooding landscape of the P acific Northwest. But in the 1970s and &rsquo\;80s\, Bundy was just one pe rpetrator amid an uncanny explosion of serial rape and murder across the r egion. Why so many? Why so weirdly and nightmarishly gruesome? Why the sen seless rise and then sudden fall of an epidemic of serial killing?
\nAs \;Murderland \;indelibly maps the lives and careers of Bundy a
nd his infamous peers in mayhem&mdash\;the Green River Killer\, the I-5 Ki
ller\, the Night Stalker\, the Hillside Strangler\, even Charles Manson&md
ash\;Fraser&rsquo\;s Northwestern death trip begins to uncover a deeper my
stery and an overlapping pattern of environmental destruction. At ground z
ero in Ted Bundy&rsquo\;s Tacoma stood one of the most poisonous lead\, co
pper\, and arsenic smelters in the world\, but it was hardly unique in the
West. As Fraser&rsquo\;s investigation inexorably proceeds\, evidence mou
nts that the plumes of these smelters not only sickened and blighted milli
ons 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\, ta king readers on a profound quest into the dark heart of the real American berserk.
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