I came to Have at It, Sister late on a Tuesday night, the kind of night when you tell yourself you'll listen for twenty minutes and end up going well past midnight. Bill Griffeth is not a household name in literary circles, but his background as a longtime CNBC anchor gives his narration an unusual quality: the authority of someone trained to deliver hard news without editorializing, pressed up against the raw vulnerability of a man who spent years trying to understand something that happened in his own extended family. It is an unusual combination, and it works.
Gloria Burtzlaff was a South Dakota woman who, after enduring years of abuse from her husband Larry, shot him dead in 1991. The night in question involved drowning attempts, glasses thrown across rooms, and the kind of escalation that defense attorneys would later try to place inside a legal framework the state of South Dakota did not yet recognize. Griffeth is her cousin by marriage, which gives him access but also an obligation to be scrupulously fair, and he is.
Where This One Lands
What makes this audiobook land harder than the average true-crime release is Griffeth's insistence on context over sensation. He is not interested in re-creating the violence for its own sake. He wants to understand how South Dakota became the last state in the country to bar expert testimony on battered woman syndrome as part of a self-defense plea, and how Gloria's case helped change that. It is the kind of legal and social history that rarely gets told with this much care, and hearing it in Griffeth's voice, steady and unsparing, adds an additional layer of gravity.
The comparison to I'll Be Gone in the Dark is printed right in the synopsis, and while the books are quite different in scope, the emotional through-line is accurate: both are personal investigations by someone who became obsessed with a case that touched them unexpectedly. Griffeth does not have Michelle McNamara's lyrical flair, but he has something equally valuable, restraint and a genuine willingness to sit with moral ambiguity rather than resolve it neatly.
Why Listen to Have at It, Sister
The fact that Griffeth narrates himself matters enormously here. You are not hearing an actor interpret another person's words. The pauses, the careful qualifications, the moments where he acknowledges he cannot quite explain what drove Larry Burtzlaff toward violence, all of that comes through as something close to lived bewilderment. Reviewer Gilbert M. Stack noted that the situation is complicated by Larry's illness, which diminished his sense of self-worth and fed the abuse cycle, and Griffeth does not flinch from that complexity. He presents Larry as neither monster nor victim of circumstance, which is harder to write than either extreme.
At just over seven hours, the audiobook moves efficiently. Griffeth threads legal proceedings, personal interviews, and social history together without losing the human story at the center. The question of whether Gloria deserved to stand trial at all, given the evidentiary limitations of South Dakota law at the time, is handled with real nuance.
What Gives Us Pause
The rating count here is minimal, which makes it hard to gauge broader reception, but the one available review raises something worth flagging: the relationship between Larry's deteriorating mental state and the escalating violence is a genuinely uncomfortable thread to follow. Griffeth does not let Gloria off the hook entirely, either. There are moments when he acknowledges the affair, the complicated emotional history, the reasons the marriage had corroded long before that final night. This is not a straightforward victim-and-monster story, and listeners who come expecting that will find themselves on less certain ground.
The Audible Originals format also means this has received less distribution than a traditionally published true-crime book might. That is a shame, because the subject, the legal evolution around battered woman syndrome and self-defense claims, deserves a wider audience, particularly in 2026 when the legal and cultural conversation about intimate partner violence continues to evolve.
The Right Listener for Have at It, Sister
This is a strong pick for listeners drawn to true crime that operates closer to legal journalism than tabloid drama. If you appreciated the moral seriousness of books like Say Nothing or Lost Girls, Griffeth's willingness to sit inside a complicated case without simplifying it will feel like familiar, welcome territory. It is less suited to listeners looking for a propulsive thriller, the pace is deliberate and the legal history occasionally detailed. But for anyone interested in how American law has handled, or failed to handle, domestic violence cases, this is essential listening.
Questions Listeners Ask
Is this audiobook only available through Audible Originals?
Yes, Have at It, Sister is an Audible Original, which means it is exclusive to the Audible platform and not available through other audiobook retailers.
How much of the audiobook covers the legal history versus the personal story?
Roughly equal weight is given to both. Griffeth traces the social and legal evolution around battered woman syndrome while keeping Gloria's specific story as the emotional spine throughout.
How does this compare to other true-crime audiobooks narrated by the author?
Griffeth's broadcaster background makes him an unusually composed self-narrator. Unlike some author-narrated true crime that can feel amateurish, his delivery is controlled and credible, though it lacks the raw emotion of something like I'll Be Gone in the Dark.
