In Cold Blood

I haul my copy out every 2-3 years just to remind myself how wonderful the rhythms and nuances of the American language can be at the hands of a master. I am totally drawn into the lives of the prosperous and completely unsuspecting Clutter family of western Kansas and the two drifters, Perry and Dick, who by themselves didn't amount to much but together proved lethal that fall night in 1959.

A trivia note: Capote's research assistant on this book was Nell Harper) Lee, who shortly after would become famous as the author of "To Kill a Mockingbird."

I'd recommend Gerald Clarke's excellent biography "Capote" to learn about this one-of-a-kind book, its creation, reception, and how it affected the author's life.


Thank you Mr. Capote!   July 22, 2001
Tara (Kutztown, Pa United States)
92 out of 122 found this review helpful

For various reasons this is a book that is hard to review.

If you are looking for a book that will take you into the minds of killers, then this is the book for you.

A great classic that will have you sleeping w/the lights on and looking at criminals and questioning why. You will question your personal view on the death sentance as well.

To say much more about this book may sway you or give you to much information.

Capote take you to where no other book can. A sensless murder and semi biography of the killers and a journey you will NEVER forget.


A true classic...   July 7, 2006
Cynthia K. Robertson (beverly, new jersey USA)
19 out of 21 found this review helpful

I received Truman Capote's In Cold Blood as a gift, and this book is a true gem in the true crime genre.

Herb Clutter was a wealthy rancher and prominent citizen of Holcomb, Kansas. In 1959, Clutter, his wife, and his two teenaged children were brutally murdered in their home. The killers are two paroled criminals, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, and they think that they have executed the perfect crime. Their involvement is no surprise as Capote introduces them at the beginning of the book. Capote chronicles the search for the killers by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (the KBI).

Capote writes In Cold Blood in a folksy, easy going style. He goes from one character to another, seamlessly switching from the third person to the first, and then back again. His down-home descriptions mirror Kansas in a simpler time. Capote writes about the jury "Not everyone was attentive; one juror, as though poisoned by the numerous spring-fever yawns weighing in the air, sat with drugged eyes and jaws so utterly ajar bees could have buzzed in and out." Capote also shows surprising empathy for the murderers, and Hickock and Smith accumulate a few fans.

Although In Cold Blood is 41 years old, reading it now couldn't be more timely. First, the film, Capote, was recently released. In Cold Blood became his most successful book. Also, Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields was just published. Lee and Capote were neighbors, friends and collaborators. Lee did much of the research for In Cold Blood, and Capote rewarded her by dedicating this book to her (along with Jack Dunphy). I'm sorry it took so long for me to read this classic and I now have to follow up In Cold Blood with these two works.



A journalistic masterpiece   May 29, 2006
Richard E. Hourula (Berkeley, CA. United States)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

Like countless others I was inspired to read "In Cold Blood" after watching the Oscar-nominated film, "Capote." For some this was a return to a book previously enjoyed perhaps over 30 years ago. For others such as myself this was a "why hadn't I gotten around to reading this before?" experience. Why indeed.
What a truly powerful story wonderfully told by Truman Capote who, sadly, never duplicated the efforts that produced this book.
"In Cold Blood" is ostensibly the story the story of the brutal slaying of four members of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas in November 1959 and the two men who killed them. But it is infinitely more than that. This is the story of how people react to circumstances (the powerful winds of chance), those many arbitrary events that may impact a life for a second or day or forever and the types of people they become. It is about reactions and perceptions. It is about people in the great, vast Middle America, some the proverbial salt of the earth and others who poison that same earth.
Capote studied the victims. Painting intricate and, in my mind, lovingly detailed portraits of fine ordinary folks whose lives were cut short in violent fashion. Capote studied the people of the small community in which the Clutters lived. Neighbors, friends, acquaintances and investigators of the crime. We see how they were and how they responded to the tragic event.
Captor studied (he had incredible access to them) the perpetrators. Perry Smith and Dick Hickcock. How do young boys grow up to be criminals, particularly bright lads like these, and how do they progress to murder.
It is a sober topic but in the hands of a masterful writer such as Capote it is somehow not a depressing one. Instead it reveals layer upon layer about people. No one is a stereotype in Capote's able hands. Everyone has a back story.
Capote's genius as a journalist is that he has not perceptible point of view. He allows the circumstances and the participants speak for themselves. In fact he quotes the leading figures extensively, often using entire letters written by or two one. His choices are wise ones as the quotations never cause the narrative to slow. "In Cold Blood" is a well-paced book that holds the readers interest throughout.
The tragic murder of the Cutter family and the men who committed the crime are at the center of the book by mostly as access to a far wider and more important story about human beings.
Do not hesitate to read this book if you never had. If you've not seen "Capote" so so. And see the film version of this book, released shortly after Capote's work.


Pinnacle of the True Crime genre   October 9, 2003
A.J. (Maryland)
11 out of 12 found this review helpful

The smelly, hairy armpit of every bookstore is its True Crime section, shelved with scores of Ann Rule-styled mass-market paperbacks with black covers and fluorescent-lettered titles intended to shock, promising pages of murder and mayhem illustrated by grainy black-and-white photos, ultimately delivering banality in a glossy package. However, Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood," although sharing the purpose of the company it keeps, is a diamond in the rough. With sharp psychological insight and prose that is lithe and sophisticated without assuming an opulence that risks overdressing its grisly subject matter, Capote writes like he sincerely cares about not just the victims and the murderers, but everybody involved in the investigation of the case and then some.

The case is fairly simple: On a November night in 1959 in the tiny western Kansas prairie town of Holcomb, two ex-convicts, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, entered a farm house belonging to the Clutters, one of the richest and most respected families in the county, tied up Herb Clutter, his wife Bonnie, his son Kenyon, and his daughter Nancy with cords and killed them with a shotgun. The motive is not difficult to deduce from the outset; by introducing the killers early, Capote fashions the book not as a mystery but as a study of criminal behavior.

In leading up to the crime, the narration alternates between the domestic tranquility of the Clutter family, a picture so innocent and wholesomely American it belongs on a Christmas card, and the sinister machinations and bizarre delusions of the killers as they travel hundreds of miles to Holcomb to do their deed. After the murders have been committed, leaving the town horrified and puzzled, the book follows Dick and Perry's cross-country trips in search of the next big score while special agents from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation probe the crime scene for evidence (the killers cleverly leave almost none) and interrogate the few witnesses who have anything to say. Capote manages to relate something valuable about every person the investigation encounters, from a gas station attendant to the woman who runs Holcomb's post office, so the book reads like a novel of rich characterization.

An inevitable breakthrough in the case leads to the arrest of Dick and Perry, who have not covered their tracks well. From here, Capote examines the relevant details of their trial, in which they are convicted, and their appeals while they await execution on Death Row. Even to the very end we are continually informed that the book's devotion is to its killers' life stories, given clinical treatment during the trial in which we hear (off the record) professional psychoanalyses that attempt to explain how a man might become a monster. Although "In Cold Blood" could be criticized for apparently sympathizing with the killers, it manages to acknowledge their humanity without apologizing for or attempting to justify their violent actions.