Valerie Bauerlein Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Valerie Bauerlein
Valerie Bauerlein is a national reporter for The Wall Street Journal that writes about Southern politics and small town America, culture, and economics. She has covered the South for her entire career, which includes 19 years at the Journal and 4 years at The State in Columbia, South Carolina. She graduated from Duke University.

South Carolina is a major part of her. She covered the State House for The State during the early 2000s.

Valerie has covered the South Carolina presidential primaries in 2008, 2012, and 2016 for The Wall Street Journal. She’s also covered manmade and natural disasters, from Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast to the mass slayings at Emanuel Church in Charleston.

She has written features about mountain men, NASCAR, roller coasters, Waffle House, and beauty pageants. Valerie also covered Wachovia, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, as well as other regional banks from the acquisition tear in 2005 up to the crash in 2008. She covered Pepsi, Coke, and the snack and beverage industry for the Journal.

Before she joined the Journal in 2005, she worked as a congressional correspondent for the News & Observer (Raleigh, NC), a legislative reporter at The State (Columbia, SC), and a cops reporter at the Winston-Salem (NC) Journal.

When telling the Murdaugh story, she knew she wouldn’t be the first to tell it, but she could write the most definitive book about it.

While writing the book she dug deep into thousands of pages of historical records to document the Murdaugh family’s penchant for existing out the law and interviewed hundreds of sources about these killings and the events that led up to them. She spent almost three years traipsing around South Carolina’s Lowcountry in order to document the Murdaugh family dynasty’s fall.

She never considered herself a true crime fan, and she has never really gotten into “Law & Order” or shows like it, however one of the smartest analyses of the case was done by the showrunner for the show.

“The Devil At His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty” is a non-fiction book that was released in 2024. Privilege, power, and blood. This is the true story of Alex Murdaugh’s violent downfall written by a veteran Wall Street Journal reporter who’s become an authority on the case.

Alex Murdaugh was a benevolent dictator: a political boss, president of the South Carolina trial lawyers’ association, a part time prosecutor, and a partner in his family’s law firm. He was always ready with a drink, a favor, and an invitation to Moselle, his family’s 1,700 acre hunting estate. The Murdaugh name ignited such respect (and fear) for 100 miles.

When he murdered Paul and Maggie at Moselle on a dark summer night, the fragile facade of his world couldn’t hold any longer. His forefathers had covered up this midnight suicide at a remote railroad crossing, this bootlegging ring ran out of a courthouse, and the attempted murder of one pregnant lover. Alex also almost walked away from his unspeakable crimes with an intact reputation, however his downfall was secured through a twist of fate, some stray of mistakes, and one fateful decision made by an old friend that had seen enough finally.

Why would a man that had it all murder his grown son and his wife? In order to unwind the roots of Alex’s ruin, Valerie reported not only from the courthouse each day but also along the backroads and through the tidal marshes of South Carolina’s Lowcountry. As the jurors made their pilgrimage to the crime scene, attempting to envision Paul and Maggie’s final moments, she walked right behind them, sensing all the ghosts which haunt the Murdaughs’ now ruined legacy.

Through some cinematic writing and masterful research, this book is a transporting journey through Alex’s life, the night of the murders, and the investigation which culminated in a trial which held tens of millions of people spellbound. With her fearless instincts for the truth and stunning insights, she uncovers layers of the Murdaugh murder case which might not have been told.

Valerie delivers quite the riveting story which explores the abuse of power and the human heart of darkness. It is a horrifying and electrifying story, that’s been expertly written and reported. Brilliantly rendered and sweeping in its scope, nobody else could have approached the confidence and clarity with which Valerie writes this book. It is a deeply researched and compulsively readable epic of murder, deceit, and unchecked power; it is a master class in crime journalism, and all while she offers fresh details which expose the dark heart of this psychopath.

This is a haunting journey through time and across generations of Murdaugh men, probing some of the unresolved deaths which linger in the orbit of Alex’s own power. This is brilliant stuff, if Grisham and Faulkner had collaborated on a true crime story, Valerie’s masterpiece would probably be the result.

This is a memorable and often chilling tale of addled minds, tangled webs, and the evil that men do, Valerie’s gracefully written, thoughtful treatment is by far the best one in all the Murdaugh sweepstakes. It is all here: the deceit and audacity, the calculation and desperation, one family’s unbelievable legacy of utter venality. Valerie’s own unforgettable and blistering account leaves no stone unturned, and helping us to truly understand the man finally at the core of one of the century’s wildest crime stories.

With “The Devil at His Elbow”, Valerie pulls off something difficult journalistically: despite all the media coverage, she has managed to produce the definitive account of these murders. Forget the TV specials, the podcasts, and the documentaries, this right here is the version of the story that you will want to read. And once you start reading it, you will not be able to put it back down.

Valerie’s style of writing with a ton of details, yet it’s told as a long unfolding story about this family. It’s a great read for anybody, however particularly those that have an interest in South Carolina and its culture.