Now, if the conclusion of the trial has left us with some time on our hands, if we find ourselves missing the company of Big Red and Fast Eddie, Buster and Bubba, maybe Tangled Vines is just what we need ... pulls aside the South Carolina Low Country’s curtain of Spanish moss and steps smoothly into its swamp of corruption, embezzlement, and murder, delivering a Baedeker of the family’s steady rise and spectacular fall ... Glatt takes us swiftly through the familiar twists and turns of the double-murder trial. By the end of the book, Alex is just a pathetic voice recorded in his phone calls from jail, often to Buster, the only survivor of the Murdaugh madness. And Buster doesn’t seem to have much time for chatting with his dad.
With the flurry of recent coverage, including Netflix and Dateline documentaries, readers will be swept up in this account of the circumstances that enabled such tragedies.
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.
...an exemplary work of true crime ... Glatt has produced the equivalent of a juicy John Grisham novel, featuring a lead more 'dark and totally devoid of conscience' than anyone he’s ever researched. This real-life Southern noir lingers.
