by John Glatt
First published 2023
The Murdaugh family ruled South Carolina's low country for a century. Their multimillion-dollar law practice brought wealth and influence that made their name synonymous with power. John Glatt traces how this legal dynasty built its empire and how it all came crashing down. On June 7, 2021, Alex Murdaugh found his wife Maggie and son Paul shot dead at their hunting lodge. Months later, someone shot Alex himself on a country road. As investigators dug deeper, they uncovered financial fraud, suspicious deaths, and a pattern of using influence to escape consequences. Two years before his murder, Paul Murdaugh had killed a teenage girl in a boat crash while drunk, yet received minimal punishment from police. The family that inspired both fear and respect had protected their own for generations. Glatt reveals how Alex Murdaugh became a desperate man facing financial ruin who would attempt anything, including staging his own assassination, to preserve his family's reputation. This Edgar Award nominee reconstructs the shocking double murder that destroyed one of the South's most powerful families.
Genres: crime, non-fiction, 21st-century, true-crime, american-history
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: abuse-of-power, corruption, downfall
Setting: South Carolina
Period: 21st-century
310 pages · Kindle Edition · St. Martin's Press
Content warnings: death, murder, violence