Review: "Murderland," Caroline Fraser

There were 669 serial killers at large in the 1990s in the U.S. The number dropped to 371 in the 2000s, and to 117 from 2010-2020.

Could stricter environmental regulations be the reason?

Gasoline used in cars contained lead from the 1920s until 1996, when it was banned. Lead-based paint wasn’t recognized as a threat to children’s health until the 1970s; it was outlawed in 1978.

Meanwhile, throughout most of the 20th century, industrial smelters spewed lead, arsenic, copper and other toxins into the skies of numerous cities, including Tacoma, Washington—where Ted Bundy grew up.

He’s not the only serial killer the Pacific Northwest has produced.

Is there a connection?

Caroline Fraser makes a strong case for one in “Murderland,” an astonishing mélange of scientific data, true crime, memoir and sociological analysis.

Fraser grew up on Mercer Island, in the Seattle Metro area. She was born in 1961 into a dysfunctional family and weaves the bizarre and sometimes frightening events of the latter half of the 20th century into her narrative.

As I grew up in the same period, I vividly remember the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy; the Manson murders; Chappaquiddick; Patty Hearst; and Three Mile Island. 

It did feel sometimes like the world was spinning out of control.

In Fraser’s own back yard, the Lacey V. Murrow Floating Bridge (connecting Seattle and Mercer Island) provides another backdrop of confusion and death. It was the scene of frequent bizarre accidents until it finally sank in 1990.

Fraser paints a horrifying picture of the pollution she believes contributed to the derangement of serial killers like Bundy, Israel Keyes, Richard Ramirez (the Night Stalker), Gary Ridgway (the Green River Killer) and Randy Woodfield (the I-5 Killer). The smell of Washington state’s third most populous city was known as “the aroma of Tacoma.” Fraser writes. “Gardens fail; crops die; bees die. Strange spots appear on the laundry hung out to dry on the line.” Ash from the smelter falls onto the streets; children develop breathing problems.

Workers got sick, had disfiguring accidents. It’s not easy reading—it is compelling reading.

Then there are the serial killers and their unspeakable crimes. Sometimes, when I’m watching a crime drama that features a lunatic torturer, I think, “Really?” Well, yes. Really. Again, not easy reading.

And yet, I was glued to the pages of this book. Fraser is a fine writer, and she is angry about a lot of things—the toxins, the Rockefellers and Guggenheims who financed the industries, her father…the list goes on. But the book is not a rant. It is well-researched, passionate and even poetic at times. 

I wondered about my well-being when I was about in the middle of “Murderland,” when the dismembered body parts (both murder victims and smelter workers) were piling up. Maybe I really needed to be reading a cozy mystery set in a quaint Southern town with a fabulous bookstore.

Nah. “Murderland” was worth the angst. Besides, I needed to see Bundy executed, and the smelters shut down.

Review: "Everything is Tuberculosis," John Green

Why is everything tuberculosis? Why do I want to read about it?

 

Those were my questions when I first heard of this book. Then I saw and heard popular YA novelist John Green via several media interviews and became intrigued.

Next question: Why is the author of The Fault is in Our Stars writing about tuberculosis?

Because he has obsessive-compulsive disorder and can’t stop thinking about germs? Because he met a young TB patient in Sierra Leone, and needed to tell his story?

Yes.

And here is another answer: “Everything is tuberculosis” because the disease has permeated our social history and popular culture, while it remains a serious health risk in impoverished countries.

It was, at times, amazing (and disheartening) to realize how true this is. Perhaps, for example, New Mexico is a state because of TB. (It recruited consumptives to live there in order to achieve the white population the laws required at the time.) The man who invented the cowboy hat had moved out west to recover from the disease.

The three major conspirators in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which began World War I, were consumptives.

This book was fascinating, at times heart-rending, and written in an engaging style.

Green takes us through the history of TB. Once, it was widespread and incurable. Also, it was misunderstood. Its infectious nature was unknown. Consumption, as it was called, was even thought to be romantic. Didn’t it seem to affect poets and other creative types more frequently? (Well, John Keats and all the Brontë sisters did die from it.) Young women aspired to achieve “consumption chic” with pale skin and sunken cheeks.

The TB fashion trend hit a wall when the disease was proven to be contagious. Moreover, although many people harbored “tubercules” in their bodies, these often did not blossom into disease without extenuating circumstances. Poor and unsanitary conditions could spring the TB into life. 

Prejudice and racism ensued, and an era of shunning began. Sanitariums were built across the country. Patients languished in the institutions: The main treatment was rest. Some, including children, lived for years in these places, seldom visited and often feared by staff.

Finally, cures were found and TB virtually eradicated in places like the U.S. But other countries have not fared so well.

Green was on a health fact-finding trip in Sierra Leone when he met Henry. He first thought the young man was the same age as his own son Henry—nine. But Henry was a teenager who had been suffering from TB for years and, yes, languishing in a hospital. Except Henry was bright and introspective. He was eager to meet new people, and recorded his thoughts and feelings in journals and poetry.

Henry’s story is woven through the book, and it is an amazing one. Initially I thought this story was posthumous, and Henry did come close to death. It was only through the efforts of a tenacious and dedicated doctor that he finally received the treatment he needed.

There are cures for TB—but, of course, money is a factor. Distributing drugs in countries which lack a good medical infrastructure also is an issue. And prejudice remains a problem.

Henry is now a college student with his own YouTube Channel. He has an infectious energy and optimistic outlook. It’s difficult to reflect on how this ray of sunshine (which is how I came to regard him) could have ended up just another sad statistic.

It’s difficult to realize that after centuries of experience with TB, after 70 years with a cure, we’re still losing people to this terrible disease.

Everything is tuberculosis, indeed.

Review: "The Making of a Medium," Francine McEwen

Francine McEwen has written an interesting and informative account of how she became a medium.

This isn’t exactly a review, because Francine is a friend, and so I can’t be totally objective.

Also, I am a bit of a skeptic regarding the whole idea of mediumship. Perhaps “friendly skeptic” is a good description of my attitude. I have had dreams that revealed to me information that I didn’t know in my waking hours. I believe cardinals are messengers from my deceased ancestors, come to offer me support as they nibble on sunflower seeds. In other words, I do have my own humble connections to the spirit world.

Perhaps the best way to explain my status is that I am open to the idea of mediums, but not entirely convinced.

That did not stop me from enjoying this book.

I was impressed by Francine’s calling to provide solace to the grieving with her messages from their loved ones. I like the idea that our departed companion animals abide with our “family pods” until we are able to join them.

Francine writes that she recognized her gift as a child, though it took her years to understand exactly what it was. As an adult, she studied mediumship and has worked with mentors. I didn’t know such an educational infrastructure existed and thought it commendable.

I was especially interested to learn about mediums' use of “automatic writing.” As a writer, I know the power of free writing—letting words flow while keeping the inner “editor” on mute. It is a powerful tool for creativity, but also for self-growth and healing. I can see how this practice would help mediums to “tune in” to messages from beyond.

I may have been a little less of a skeptic by the time I finished this book. But the bottom line is this: A reader does not have to be a believer to enjoy The Making of a Medium.

Review: "Midnight in Peking," by Paul French

My fascination with true crime stories perplexes those who see me as the shy, retiring type. So I am always quick to point out that I only read sophisticated treatments of serial killers and ax murderers. Midnight in Peking, Paul French’s new contribution to the genre, certainly fits that bill.

The murder at the heart of this tale is suitably horrific--in 1937, an English schoolgirl is killed, her body mutilated, in the fabled Chinese city.

The setting is exotic--expat Brits and Americans mingle with traditional Chinese (the men in blue gowns, strolling with their cages of songbirds) and exiled White Russians. The Japanese are advancing on the old capital. Rickshaw drivers ply streets lined with dive bars, opium dens and brothels.

Most of the Westerners live in a gated community called “The Legation” where they enjoy all the comforts of home--and probably more, considering this was the era of the Great Depression.

The cast of characters is fascinating. The girl’s father is a renowned scholar of Chinese culture--but also a failed diplomat with a closet full of secrets. There’s also a smarmy American dentist, a Scotland Yard-trained copper, and a Canadian tramp with interesting connections.

Add to this a botched and hamstrung investigation that is all but over when the Japanese arrive, brandishing their own peculiar forms of cruelty, and you have the makings of a page turner.

French tells the story as it unfolded, so the reader follows the investigators as they consider suspects: Pamela Werner’s boyfriends, her headmaster, and even her father. Red herrings abound.

The case almost disappears into the maelstrom of the times. But E.T.C. Werner, Pamela’s father, doggedly pursues all leads, hires private eyes, hounds British authorities and ultimately reconstructs the terrible story. In the end, like a well-done fictional murder mystery, it all makes perfect, awful sense.

French writes that he encountered the case in a footnote in a book about the rise of communism in China. He then painstakingly pieced together the story--of one girl’s gruesome death, of the end of old China, and of the destruction of one outpost of colonialism, with all its attendant evils.

Review: "Escape from Camp 14," by Blaine Harden

I wasn’t totally ignorant of the recent history of North Korea before I started reading Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West.

I knew that the country had a totalitarian government, led by the latest member of the Kim dynasty, Kim Jong-un. And that the country experienced a famine in the 1990s. Of course, I was well aware that North Korea poses a nuclear threat to the rest of the world - even though its recent missile launch fizzled.

What I didn’t know, until I read this fascinating and heartbreaking book, was that North Korea’s twisted government runs labor camps that confine, enslave and torture political opponents of the Kim regime - and their families. Even worse, children are born in these camps. They grow up in an inhumane, closed and paranoid environment.

Few escape from these prisons, which are well-guarded, surrounded by electric fences and set in the bleak landscape of the North Korean hinterlands. But the story of Shin Dong-hyuk is made even more compelling by the fact that he was a camp native. It’s a true testament to the human spirit that a young man who grew up without any comprehension of love, friendship, honor or the realities of the outside world, was able to find the resources to evade the forces of one of the world’s most brutal regimes.

In fact, he is believed to be the only person born in the camps to do so.

Reporter Blaine Harden has crafted a fine account of Shin’s journey from a living hell to the paradise of southern California.

Shin’s father was jailed because of the alleged transgressions of his brother. His marriage to Shin’s mother was arranged in prison. Life, for Shin, was a battle for survival. He saw his mother as competition for food.

For years, Shin was not even aware there was an outside world worth escaping to. It’s not until he meets an older, well-traveled prisoner that he begins to dream of freedom - and grilled meat.

Escape From Camp 14 is not an easy book to read. It is a visit to a place where people are commodities, not just to the guards, but to each other. They sleep on floors and eat a diet of cabbage soup. When prisoners die on a work detail, their counterparts simply pick up the bodies and toss them to the side.

Shin’s escape does not mean an immediate end to his hardships. He wanders through North Korea, living by his wits, until he finally reaches the border with China. Then he faces another slow journey to South Korea, where he finally gets the help he needs to learn to live in the world outside Camp 14.

Not surprisingly, Shin has to deal with feelings of guilt and a growing awareness that the years of living in an emotional vacuum may be as hard to overcome as the electrified fence.

He has had to acknowledge the role he played in the execution of his mother and brother, who tried to escape well before him.

As Harden points out, the enslaved laborers of North Korea have no famous face to represent them, to appeal for help for them. It’s a huge human rights issue that few know about, or care about. Even South Koreans, complacently living well-fed lives amid a booming economy, are tired of escapees’ tales. As Harden titles one chapter, “South Koreans Are Not So Interested.”

The book left me wondering if these camps would have been closed years ago if North Korea had oil reserves beneath its barren soil. Did the Korean War accomplish all that it should have if these hellholes still exist? What can be done to stop the Kim regime? Shin’s story makes it clear that we urgently need to find answers to those questions.