Murder & Merlot

Murder & Merlot is a true crime book club that meets from 6:00 - 7:00 pm on the second Tuesday of every month at Mimi's Retreat (125 East Ninth Street, Auburn). Join us for a glass and a discussion of classic and modern works of true crime. The books we read will be selected by members. All attendees must be over 21 and have valid ID On February 9th, we'll discuss Murderland by Caroline Fraser. Description of Murderland from Penguin Random House: Caroline Fraser grew up in the shadow of Ted Bundy, the most notorious serial murderer of women in American history, surrounded by his hunting grounds and mountain body dumps, in the brooding landscape of the Pacific Northwest. But in the 1970s and ’80s, Bundy was just one perpetrator amid an uncanny explosion of serial rape and murder across the region. Why so many? Why so weirdly and nightmarishly gruesome? Why the senseless rise and then sudden fall of an epidemic of serial killing? As Murderland indelibly maps the lives and careers of Bundy and his infamous peers in mayhem—the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, even Charles Manson—Fraser’s Northwestern death trip begins to uncover a deeper mystery and an overlapping pattern of environmental destruction. At ground zero in Ted Bundy’s Tacoma stood one of the most poisonous lead, copper, and arsenic smelters in the world, but it was hardly unique in the West. As Fraser’s investigation inexorably proceeds, evidence mounts that the plumes of these smelters not only sickened and blighted millions 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, taking readers on a profound quest into the dark heart of the real American berserk. Take a winter road trip with Eckhart Public Library! Winter READ. DO. EXPLORE. runs from December 28th through February 14th. ______________________________________ “The truth, of course, was much weirder: I was foregoing a fancy Hollywood party to return not to my sleeping infant but my laptop, to excavate through the night in search of information about a man I’d never met, who’d murdered people I didn’t know.” - Michelle McNamara, I'll Be Gone in the Dark