Our Take

What separates The Devil at His Elbow from the wave of Murdaugh content—documentaries, podcasts, rushed paperbacks—is Bauerlein's depth of access and her reporter's instinct for what actually matters. She was in the courthouse every day, but she also walked the backroads, talked to the people who knew the Murdaughs across generations, and traced the family's history of impunity far enough back to understand how Alex was possible. The result reads less like true crime and more like a portrait of a particular kind of American corruption—the kind that persists because everyone who benefits from it looks the other way.

The writing is genuinely cinematic. Bauerlein has a novelist's eye for scene and a journalist's discipline with fact, and the combination produces something that holds up to scrutiny while remaining propulsive. The layers she uncovers—family history, legal dynasty, systemic failure—give the familiar story new weight.

Readers who devoured I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara or Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt will find Bauerlein operating at a similar level of immersion. A True Crime Tuesday pick that earns every page of its length.