Lindsey (endless_tbr_list)'s Reviews > Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers

"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."