Book review of Blood on Their Hands by Mandy Matney

When Mandy Matney and Liz Farrell began working collectively as reporters in Hilton Head, South Carolina, they bonded whereas overlaying an episode of “The Bachelorette” that was filming within the space. Before lengthy, they started calling themselves Thelma and Louise. As Matney writes in her riveting memoir, co-authored with Carolyn Murnick, Blood on Their Hands: Murder, Corruption, and the Fall of the Murdaugh Dynasty, “Looking back now, I could never have realized how apt that Thelma & Louise comparison would end up being; while the film starts as a buddy comedy, it quickly turns darker.”

In 2019, Matney and Farrell have been among the many first to report on the boating accident that killed teenager Mallory Beach when a drunk 19-year-old Paul Murdaugh was on the wheel. The reporters rapidly realized that the Murdaughs, a outstanding household within the coastal Lowcountry, “seemed to be like the Mafia.” Nonetheless, they saved digging, undaunted even within the face of attainable hazard and the dearth of help from their misogynistic editor. “When you’re a journalist,” Matney writes, “you’re sort of like a cross between a treasure hunter, an archaeologist, and a heat-seeking missile.”

Matney additionally lined the 2021 murders of Paul and his mom, Maggie, for which father and husband Alex Murdaugh was charged and convicted—and delved into different heartbreaking instances wherein Murdaugh, an legal professional, stole cash from his shoppers. Early on, Matney predicted, “I knew this case could be as big as any Netflix documentary. . . . It could be life-changing for my career.” While the e book presents lots of fodder for true crime fans, Matney properly focuses her narrative throughout the framework of her personal journalistic trajectory, together with the favored “Murdaugh Murders Podcast” she created with David Moses, now her husband. Journalists, particularly these new to the sector, will discover these particulars not solely inspiring, but in addition empowering, as Matney finds success within the face of the altering media panorama regardless of how the corporatization of journalism negatively impacts reporters’ talents to do their jobs.

Part memoir, half true crime story, Blood on Their Hands is an up-close-and-personal narrative that may enchantment to all kinds of readers. Fans of Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone within the Dark, in addition to Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You, take be aware.