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The Craigslist Murders: A Novel

2.67 of 5 stars 2.67 · rating details · 80 ratings · 33 reviews

Who’s killing the Upper East Side trophy wives?

Unleashing the pent-up fury most Americans feel over the financial crisis, Brenda Cullerton’s wickedly riotous tale of an interior “desecrator” turned murderess is a flaming arrow into the dark heart of Manhattan’s filthy rich.

Working on New York’s Upper East Side for phenomenally rich and frighteningly skinny women who are s...more

Paperback, 224 pages

Published May 17th 2011 by Melville International Crime

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Fictional Interior Designers

10th out of 43 books — 2 voters

The Craigslist Murders by Brenda Cullerton

Melville International Crime

4th out of 27 books — 2 voters

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Mar 03, 2011 Greg rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime-fiction, melville-house, girls-girls-girls

On paper I don't think this is a novel I should really enjoy. It's kind of like chick-lit but where the protagonist instead of being too wrapped up in her job, getting on in her 30's, single and the best hope for a relationship is a kind of distant prince-charming is all of these things plus a person whose main hobby is trawling through craigslist looking expensive items being sold on the Upper East Side by trophy wives so she can kill them with a fireplace poker (there is probably a better term...more On paper I don't think this is a novel I should really enjoy. It's kind of like chick-lit but where the protagonist instead of being too wrapped up in her job, getting on in her 30's, single and the best hope for a relationship is a kind of distant prince-charming is all of these things plus a person whose main hobby is trawling through craigslist looking expensive items being sold on the Upper East Side by trophy wives so she can kill them with a fireplace poker (there is probably a better term for this item, but you probably know what I'm talking about).

But as you can see by my four-star rating I enjoyed this book quite a bit.

I have to admit though that some of my enjoyment to this American Psycho-lite satire (yes American Psycho is a satire and yes, there might be some misogynistic elements in it (in which one? I guess in both since this is all violence on women, done by another woman) but one doesn't cancel out the other and this book is very un-nauseating in the murders and there are no habit-trails used and sadly no one eats a chocolate covered urinal puck (how is that scene not satire??)) comes from the novel being about killing rich people, something that has a certain titillation to me. Besides the base enjoyment in seeing rich assholes get it ($40,000 dollars for curtain rods? Half a million for a toilet? Seriously, how can anyone not want to stab someone in the eye who would spend that kind of money on those kind of things (I have to assume that these aren't exaggerations, but maybe they are but I'm sure they aren't that exaggerated if they are)), I had a very personal enjoyment in the book because for about 80 percent of the novel (broken down to 18 percent of the start of the novel when I didn't know the fact I will mention after this oh, so, necessary parenthetical break, and 2 percent at the very end of the novel when I found out that I had actually been mistaken of the fact because I was assuming something that could have been true but wasn't) I believed that the main character could have been someone I went to high school with in New Jersey. This made my reading experience so much more wonderful than it would have been if I wasn't deluded into thinking that this person could have been one of the Benetton shirt, Guess? jean, and five Swatches on a wrist wearing teased hair girls that I sat in classes with from 6th through the start of 10th grade. The idea that one of these rich girls could turn into a serial killer was such an awesome thought, I even had picked out the one that I thought most likely ironically delightful as a serial killer and based most of my image of the character off of her. See, this could have been the case, that the fictional character could have gone to high school with me, first off she is the same age as me and her family lived in Alpine, NJ--a very little and very very rich town just over the George Washington Bridge that has a grammar school but shared a middle school and high school with the only very rich town that I grew up in (for the record, the town was situated like a bowl with the downtown in the valley and on the West and East sides of the town were hills. One of the hills was considered much more wealthy than the other side. I lived on the not so wealthy side. My ninth grade health class was informed by my teacher (who also taught us that she was the type of woman who liked anal sex (why do you need to tell ninth graders that?)) that there were exceptions but generally there were better people living on the rich side of town versus the poorer side. This is exhibit A for my hatred of the rich. Also for the record my family was probably lower-middle to the low end of middle class at the time, my experiences in this town make me very sensitive to being thought mistakenly for having ever been better off class-status wise than I really ever was). The particular girl that I pictured as a future fictional serial killer would have been the type that had the choice between a brand new BMW or a brand new Porsche when she turned 17. She would have also gotten a second brand new car of her choice if she happened to wrap the car around a tree while probably high blitzed on coke, since that is what her brother had gotten when he wrecked his car (and this wasn't an anomaly family either, BMWs and Porches seemed to be given away for birthdays as an almost expected gift among a certain group of people in this town). I really got joy out of thinking that this type of person would end up driving a sharp piece of metal through women's heads to avenge for the guilt she herself felt at the vacuum of substance her life had become.

In the end though I found out the character in the book went to a posh private school though and she wasn't one of the plebeian rich that I felt personally alienated from.

Should I talk about the book? It's fun and it's disgusting, but not in a gore type way, the disgusting part is the way that the rich come up with to spend their money. I'm fairly certain I'd pull a Sylvia Plath with the oven if I ever got to the point where I felt I just had to spend the type of money the people in this book spend on trivial trinkets and bullshit. How do these people not get so disgusted with themselves that they don't just end it all. How can they think that they are really worth the amount that they have?

Wealth is an obscenity!
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Sep 21, 2011 Kaye rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nook-book, netgalley

Thirty-seven year old interior designer, Charlotte Wolfe liked making money from her clients but she seemed to hate making overly expensive acquisitions for them, especially the ever-so-ridiculously demanding trophy wives with their me-me, more-more attitudes. In fact, over-the-top wealth and possessions angered Charlotte to the point that sometimes she just had to do something about it; something more than therapy and yoga. She's taken up murdering some of her more blatant clients! How does she...more

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Jul 10, 2011 Angie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: net-galley, adult

I received a free digital copy through Net Galley.

"Charlotte had been getting away with murder for years." That's the opening line of this book, and it successfully drew me in. Then I met Charlotte: a woman just as shallow and whiny as the women she loathes! I wanted to like this one; I really did. But that just didn't happen. I was expecting a fun read with some dark humor, but all I got was a self-absorbed, interior decorator irritating the heck out of me for 200+ pages. Even after her "breakt...more

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Nov 02, 2011 Sam rated it 1 of 5 stars

I happened to pick up an ARC of this at the ALA conference this past spring, and I finally got around to reading it. I have to say that I didn't much care for it, alas.

The subtitle bills it as "a satire," but it's really more of a post-recession revenge fantasy. The main character, a Manhattan interior designer, takes out her repressed rage against her clients and the world they inhabit by murdering overprivileged women that she meets through the "for sale" section on Craigslist. This much is ma...more I happened to pick up an ARC of this at the ALA conference this past spring, and I finally got around to reading it. I have to say that I didn't much care for it, alas.

The subtitle bills it as "a satire," but it's really more of a post-recession revenge fantasy. The main character, a Manhattan interior designer, takes out her repressed rage against her clients and the world they inhabit by murdering overprivileged women that she meets through the "for sale" section on Craigslist. This much is made clear in the first five or ten pages -- although the title might mislead someone, in no way is it a mystery.

To me, it felt woefully underwritten. None of the supporting characters are more than ciphers with one or two traits; even Pavel, the token love interest, fails to make much of an impression. The conflict with Charlotte's former best friend, Vicki, feels oddly superficial, and the struggle between Charlotte and her mother is halfheartedly hinted at through most of the book, before it explodes into one of the most ridiculously overwrought denouments I've read in ages. The whole last 30 pages, actually, is pure dime-novel, and was really what made me drop my rating from two stars to one.

All of these things could be forgiven if the book were at all funny. After all, something written as a satire doesn't necessarily need well-rounded characters or a realistic plot. But I only chuckled a few times during the whole book. Likewise, if it had something incisive to say about social values and mores, it might work. But the targets are far too easy and too clumsily handled. You mean some multimillionaires are guilty of not caring about other people? Conspicuous overconsumption is bad? The mind boggles.

Of more interest is the notion that simply rubbing shoulders with these people and this mileu is poisonous, that it can corrupt anyone simply through proximity -- a notion that the ham-handed epilogue makes very obvious. However, in order for this to work, Charlotte has to at least start out as a sympathetic character. With the exception of the few flashbacks to her childhood, I thought Charlotte was dislikable throughout, and so the path that her character trod never achieved much interest to me.

With bank bailouts, skyrocketing unemployment, and the ever-increasing divide between the richest of the rich and everyone else, there's plenty of material for an incisive, savage satire. I'm afraid this isn't it though. Pass.
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Aug 02, 2011 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: america, contemporary

The Craigslist Murders reads like the bastard lovechild of American Psycho and Sex and the City, with a modern-day, homicidal, poker-wielding Lily Bart as a heroine. Charlotte Wolfe makes her living as an interior decorator to the disgustingly rich. She spends her working hours sourcing ever more ludicrously expensive fixtures and fittings and objets d’art for a network of clients rolling in more wealth than they could ever possibly figure out how to spend. Then in her spare time she likes to wi...more

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Jul 28, 2011 Alaine rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don't know what it's called when you put sentences together like this but within two little Kindle pages, we have the following:

"Rolling her neck to loosen the kinks, Charlotte lingers by the kitchen window and watched a cruise ship slip beneath the Verranzano Bridge."

"Pulling on her old shearling jacket and pocketing the piece of paper with Amy's cell phone number, Charlotte fumbled around in the hall closet."

"Tying the laces of her sneakers, Charlotte avoided looking near the fireplace."

"Clo...more

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Jul 23, 2011 Shandy Jo rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: suspense, satire, review-2011

A tongue in cheek look at the upper crust, mixed with hold on to seat suspense.

I pretty much instantly liked Charlotte. She's a interior designer for the well-to-do of NYC and well a serial killer. She's also probably the most empathic serial killer I've ever come a crossed. This is the first book I've ever read totally in the killers POV and it was great. Charlotte isn't just your standard female killer either, she blows the whole behavior science thing right out the window.

As the book progre...more

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May 29, 2011 Magdalene rated it 1 of 5 stars

In the "Thanks" section at the end of this book, Cullerton writes:

"[Thanks] to the seventy-eight editors/publishers who turned this book down."

If I was an editor/publisher, I would have been number seventy nine. This book had such inconsistent, garbled character development (if any) that I couldn't identify with the main character, Charlotte, on any level. Supporting characters - her Russian love interest, her mother - seemed to fall out of the sky and into certain scenes just because Cullerton...more

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Jul 26, 2011 Julie H. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

The Craigslist Murders is an intriguing read in which interior decorator Charlotte Wolfe has reached her breaking point. Literally. Charlotte comes to define the Upper East Side, which she characterizes as "The richest, greediest 1.8 square miles in the United States" (p. 51) as her kill zone. Specifically, when either one of her often utterly unredeemable clients or her equally hateful mother crosses one too many lines, Charlotte trawls through Craigslist to identify a stand-in for those folks-...more

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Jul 31, 2011 Kathy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-general

With a real life Craigslist murderer, I was curious to see how a writer would handle incorporating Craigslist into a series of murders. The main character is a seriously broken woman who lives in the world of the rich and famous because she works for them; we learn later that she actually grew up on this world which had a direct impact on why she is how she is. In addition to being a skilled interior decorator, she is a complex person trying to handle her past and present demons while always bei...more With a real life Craigslist murderer, I was curious to see how a writer would handle incorporating Craigslist into a series of murders. The main character is a seriously broken woman who lives in the world of the rich and famous because she works for them; we learn later that she actually grew up on this world which had a direct impact on why she is how she is. In addition to being a skilled interior decorator, she is a complex person trying to handle her past and present demons while always being in control. Being in control and doing what is the right thing to do bring her to a decision to put her victims out of their misery. She sees them as women who are miserable - she's doing them a favor by ending their misery.

Throughout the book you switch back and forth between the past and the present, learning of her upbringing with a mother for whom society came first, and her present where the one man she is drawn to because he makes her feel safe has a mysterious other life which could ruin hers. Even though she believes what she is doing is noble and correct, she can't seem to tell her best friend, this special man or her shrink.

As a reader, you find yourself sympathizing with several of the challenges in her life. No child should suffer emotional trauma as she did - but is it an excuse for any of her negative actions? How would we react to clients and wealthy friends who call at all hours demanding that we fix whatever issues they find a hinderance? One client wants to move her brand new infinity pool 10 feet to the right so it "doesn't block the view." Another client wants to put prison toilets into several of her newly decorated bathroom so they will be easier for the help to clean. She has to justify a $100 dry cleaning bill for curtains worth thousands. She points out that most of the time the hardest decisions these uber-wealthy women have is whether to wear Prada or Gucci and where to lunch each day. Of course, may of them hardly eat anyway so they can keep their looks and their new husbands, she points out. This is an unusual book where great beauty is appreciated for what it is, as well as for what it costs.

I recommend it simply because it brings the readers into a world very few will live in - the very wealthy and the interior designers who work for them. It's hard to feel true sympathy for any of the characters because of their major flaws, which is why I kept reading. I wasn't bored with the story, I just couldn't connect with any of the characters, which is something that I couldn't recall happening before when reading a book of fiction or nonfiction.(less)

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Feb 28, 2011 Jasmine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: american

okay I feel like I've been grouchy in my reviews lately and I want to stop that. This books had it's highs and it's lows, there was one glaring editing error, but that will be fixed before it's published I'm sure.

I think the idea is neat, I never know how much credit to give the author, but here it seems like the satire is solidly layered. I mean Charlotte is everything she hates, but she thinks she's above it. She's projecting all these horrible traits onto these women, many of which she has o...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Amanda rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, mental-illness, standalone

Charlotte works as an interior designer to the super-wealthy of NYC and takes her rage at the wealthy elite (not to mention her mother) out by killing wealthy women who post ads on Craigslist selling their designer items.

Think of this as the female and decidedly less graphically violent or sexual version of American Psycho. Charlotte's rage against the wealthy is our rage. (Well, unless you are the wealthy.....) It's kind of revenge porn, and it works. Charlotte is more than a murderer though, h...more

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Sep 06, 2011 Yvann S added it

I can't even really figure out what is going on here. Charlotte, an interior decorator to the absurdly uber-rich, likes to murder the uber-rich women who live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and hunts her victims by Craigslist, the US-based online classifieds community. As we join Charlotte in her crazy (seriously) life, she is fondling a fancy Hungarian piece of chinaware and preparing to batter her latest victim with a fire poker, instead of buying an eighteen-carat bracelet from her.

So f...more

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Jul 05, 2011 Robert Carraher rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: who loves murder and satire that is devilishly funny

Recommended to Robert by: The Publisher

"Charlotte had been getting away with murder for years. Most interior decorators-desecrators, she called them-got away with murder."

So opens the satirical murder spree through New Yorks Upper East Side.Wicked, delightfully evil and so much fun. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry...or buy a fireplace poker and a yoga matt and join Charlotte in her quest. Both cynically funny and edge of the seat suspenseful reading. Probably the only crime story you'll read this year that involves a yoga matt...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Ashland Mystery Oregon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-us-new-york

"Who's killing Manhattan's trophy wives?"

Cullerton's The Craigslist Murders is hilarious and a little scarey too. The protag's a psychopath, an interior designer who's filled with anger at her wealthy, exacting and nutcase clients. Charlotte Wolfe trolls Craigslist, enchanted with the mundane and the ridiculous, looking for just the right Upper East Side woman dumping something desireable. That's Charlotte's in of course, a meet to look at the goods with cash in hand and a poker rolled up in a...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Sam rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: those looking for light crime fiction meets chick lit

Recommended to Sam by: given to me for review by publisher

This was another galley given to me by the kind folks of Melville House Publishing. The Craigslist Murders is murder straightup – we have Charlotte, the murderer by night and interior decorator by day. In between tracking down antiques for her incredibly wealthy clients, she’s hunting Craigslist (like EBay) for young, society wives selling things and then kills them. (Why rich society wives are selling things on the internet I’m not sure, but I guess we can blame the recession).

Rather than being...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Misfit marked it as no-thank-you

It really was only a matter of time...

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Aug 27, 2011 Valerie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Oddly, I didn't find a point in this book, but I finished it to the end. So, Charlotte is a homicidal interior designer with great tastes. She hates all of the rich people who be fulfilled just with what they have, so she finds ways to murder them. All this was inspired by a dark childhood past, and that just basically sums everything up. Oh, and the ending was similar to the overrated slasher films where the final scene is where killer comes back from the dead, overused, and no imagination nece...more

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Aug 15, 2012 Sarah Jane rated it 2 of 5 stars

While not totally unbearable to read, the book was ultimately disappointing. The book was very jumpy, it didn't give me any sense of time or direction. The ending was really abrupt, left out so many details that could have enhanced the book as a whole. I found myself struggling through the middle waiting for it to really pick up but was greeted with more ramblings that left me wondering where it was going which was nowhere. I think it had a lot of potential to be a great book but was let down.

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Jul 18, 2011 Katie Q rated it 3 of 5 stars

I would give this 4 stars but I thought the writing style a little jagged ie not free flowing. This caused me some confusion particularly earlier in the book.

The general story was quite good. Good enough to encourage me to continue to the end even though the end was a little on the cliche' side.

A good read if you want something not so meaty and doesn't tax your brain.

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Jul 20, 2011 Amanda rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a perfect quick summer read..I literally couldn't put it down and read it in under 2 days. Who knew that murder could have such a glamorous side?

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Aug 19, 2011 Amalivia rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is one of those books to read quickly. Ignore the comma splices and numerous other writing crimes, and it's an okay escape.

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Nov 26, 2011 Kara Marie added it

Shelves: abandoned

I thought the point of this story was clever, but I found myself nodding off while trying to read it.....

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Mar 16, 2013 beentsy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013-done

I was actually quite liking this story and feeling that some of the harsher reviews weren't warranted at all. But the ending just felt weak and tacked on and really didn't make any sense. Disappointed.

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Aug 22, 2011 Nan rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

Too much whining and designer name-dropping

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Dec 17, 2011 Jane rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: female-protagonist

sociopathic envy, not amusing

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Dec 05, 2009 BrendaCullerton Cullerton is currently reading it · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone but toddlers

I wrote it. It's good. "A brilliantly prophetic and modern tale of the macabre," says James Wolcott at Vanity Fair. "A novel that roars across the intersection of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho and Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities..."
"Swift, sensational...A flaming arrow into the dark heart of New York's filthy rich," says Amazon.
Feel free to check it out on line at Amazon and Barnes&Noble.

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Nov 02, 2011 Mary Hammock rated it 4 of 5 stars

Unlike other murder mysteries, you know right off who the murerer is. Wasn't sure at first, but I like how the author developed the character. Loved the ending.

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Sep 03, 2011 Melissa rated it 2 of 5 stars

It was interesting enough to finish but not that great.

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Aug 17, 2011 Kmm rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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