Is there a connection between environmental hazards and serial killers?

MURDERLAND is a big, wonderfully-written and harrowing book about that subject of endless fascination - serial killers.

- BEVERLEY ROOS-MULLER

The Pulitzer prizewinning author, Caroline Fraser, grew up in the Pacific Northwest of America, not far from Seattle, famed among other things for its epidemic number of serial killers, including the notorious Ted Bundy. Fraser had grown up in this area, one of the killers living just over 12000 yards from her home; so she thought it worth asking why this small area had, from 1970s to the 1990s, produced so many, and why their numbers then suddenly plummeted.

Handsome, clever and dangerous Ted Bundy stunned the public with his dozens of murders of young women and girls (no one knows how many). When caught in Florida, the first thing that people thought was he doesn't look like a serial killer. So, here's the bad news; most serial killers don't look dangerous or crazy. Many function quite well within society and several are downright attractive. I wish I could say otherwise.

The United States leads the world - by far - in documented serial killers, with 3613 listed (England is second but way behind, with 176 known).