Early in her new book, Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers, Caroline Fraser writes, “It’s August of 1961. I’m seven months old. There are three males who live in what you might call the neighborhood, within a circle whose center is Tacoma. Their names are Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Gary Ridgway.” In the margin, I wrote down, “Something in the water?” I had meant it as a joke, but as I read on, I was horrified to be proved right.
In Prairie Fires, her 2017 biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Fraser showed readers what really went on during the 90 event-packed and deprivation-scarred years of her subject’s life. She deserved that Pulitzer Prize. But nothing could have prepared me for Murderland, which I consumed across state lines, in bars, parks, on trains, buses, and one night, in a poor decision, before bed.
