Nuclear Site’s Shadowy Past Leads to Present-Day Horrors in Haunting New Book, Snitchland

Based on a real place, real people and real stories gleaned from clandestine meetings with whistleblowers, Snitchland, from author and playwright Tim Mulligan, plunges readers in the town of Richland, Washington, where buried nuclear waste is rearing its ugly head.

“There is plenty of reporting and history about this nuclear cleanup site — and it’s a pretty dark history,” Mulligan said. “My goal here is to tell a story about what it’s like to live in this type of town, near this real-life place — and make it provocative, scary, thrilling and, hopefully, really funny as well.”

Mulligan grew up in Richland, and after a tunnel collapse at the Hanford nuclear plant in 2017, he felt compelled to dig deeper into the town’s and the nuclear plant’s history. The result is a trilogy of eerie tales packaged as graphic novels.

“I wanted to put my own fictionalized spin on the plight of the whistleblower — one of many who have made safety complaints for years, and suffered retribution — and make it a ghost story, guided by the ghosts of people who have suffered the consequences of this dangerous place. The Witchland Trilogy takes this real-life toxic location and throws scary scenarios into the mix. Perfect for a series of graphic novels!”

Snitchland takes place six months following the events of Witchland, the first graphic novel in the series, and draws upon hundreds of stories from whistleblowers in Richland to tell the story of a diverse family facing extreme tragedy — misfortune, extreme health concerns, unsafe conditions and death — after moving to a town plagued by decades of wrongdoing. A ghost story, a moving family drama and a love story, Snitchland is a suspenseful and cautionary tale about what can happen when one, or many, tries to shed light on the dangers lurking in a community — and unspeakable horror happens.

Told with stunning artwork by illustrator Pyrink, Snitchland is part of the Witchland Trilogy, a series of scary (and surprisingly funny) immersive plays, each also adapted into beautiful graphic novels. The trilogy centers on one truly modern family’s experiences after moving to the town of Richland, which of course involves working at the infamous Hanford nuclear plant. The third installment, Twitchland, is scheduled for release in early 2025.

A BookTrib reviewer called Mulligan’s work, “Chernobyl meets The Haunting of Hill House.”

“It’s amazing that it [Richland] hasn’t made its way into pop culture, and people don’t know that there’s this place that has such a bizarre and scary reputation,” Mulligan added.

About the Author

Tim Mulligan wrote the Witchland Trilogy, based on his own experiences growing up in the real Witchland. In addition to the Witchland World plays and graphic novel adaptations, Mulligan wrote the plays Point Loma and Bitchland, as well as the bestselling Perfect 10 cookbooks. An avid fan of theater, movies, books, TV and pretty much all things pop culture, especially in the horror genre, Mulligan and his partner, Sean, have homes in Palm Springs, San Diego and Los Angeles.

For more information, please visit www.witchlandplay.com, or connect with the author on Instagram and Facebook at witchlandplay.

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Snitchland-Graphic-Novel-Tim-Mulligan/dp/B0DHLQBJ65

Snitchland

Publisher: Highpoint

Release date: October 31, 2024

ISBN-13: 979-8-9908488-0-1

Available from Amazon.com