An exhaustive, uninspired work of true crime.
A comprehensive entry into the mountain of media surrounding a prominent recent murder trial.
In his latest true-crime book, veteran writer Glatt turns his attention to Richard Alexander Murdaugh, the scion of a powerful South Carolina legal family. The author traces the storied dynasty back to Murdaugh’s great-great-great-grandfather, who was born in Islandton, South Carolina, in 1793. It was that ancestor’s son who became the first lawyer in the family, opening a one-man law practice in Hampton County in 1910. Glatt ably brings us through the next century, during which the Murdaugh name became synonymous with the local judicial system. He explains how “three generations of Murdaughs had served as [the region’s] solicitors (called district attorneys in all other states), turning it into a family business,” while simultaneously operating their own highly lucrative private law firm. By the time Murdaugh graduated from law school in 1994, new state laws made it illegal for solicitors to also practice civil law. Consequently, he joined the family law firm, then called PMPED, which specialized in “personal injury cases for the little man.” Murdaugh enjoyed great success and social standing until 2019, when his teenage son, Paul, drunkenly drove a boat into a bridge, killing Mallory Beach, his 19-year-old friend. In June 2021, Murdaugh found his wife and Paul shot to death at his massive hunting estate, the double murder for which he would later be convicted (though that trial is beyond the scope of this book). Later that year, Murdaugh was fired from PMPED for stealing millions of dollars of funds from his own clients. The so-called “Murdaugh Murders” have spawned a virtual cottage industry of content, from podcasts to a Netflix docuseries, and it’s hard to see what Glatt, though he capably catalogs all the relevant events, offers that’s unique. Ultimately, the narrative feels like a book-length Wikipedia article.
An exhaustive, uninspired work of true crime.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781250283481
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A disturbing real-world procedural about “the bogeyman who couldn’t be found—until we found him.”
A first-person account of the long quest to bring a serial rapist and murderer to justice.
As district attorney of Sacramento County, California, Ho spearheaded a complex prosecution against Joseph DeAngelo, dubbed the Golden State Killer for his 13 proven murders in the 1970s and ’80s. As Ho reveals, his quarry’s crimes took an unsettling trajectory. As a teenager, DeAngelo thrived on bullying and petty crimes. He graduated to animal abuse, killing a dog with fireworks, and then turned his attention to humans. At first it was burglary in the small city of Visalia, 120 break-ins in a single year, 11 in a single night. He graduated to kidnapping, rape, and murder—some of his crimes committed while serving as a police officer; he was so prolific that he would be pegged the “East Area Rapist.” In the late 1980s DeAngelo’s decades-long pattern of crime quieted in Northern California, though only because he moved on to other California locations. He was finally apprehended more than 30 years after the fact through DNA and other identification technologies along with sheer logic. There Ho’s difficulties multiplied. For one, there was the question of where DeAngelo would be tried, since his crimes crossed many jurisdictions; as Ho recounts, one source of aggravation in particular was Orange County, its prosecutors jockeying for position in an election year. (“It ain’t gonna fucking happen!” Ho responded.) There were evidentiary issues, since many police departments had discarded relevant crime-scene materials decades earlier. Finally, there were legal concerns, some of which, as Ho lays them out, were complex technicalities. But in the end, as Ho’s careful, well-written account chronicles, DeAngelo was brought to justice, with one rape survivor saying at trial, succinctly, “Some people are wired wrong, and DeAngelo is one of them.”
A disturbing real-world procedural about “the bogeyman who couldn’t be found—until we found him.”Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9798890130358
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Third State Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
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