In Cold Blood - Book Review

In Cold Blood details the 1959 murders of Herbert Clutter, a wealthy farmer from Holcomb, Kansas; his wife, Bonnie; his 16-year-old daughter, Nancy; and his 15-year-old son, Kenyon, and the aftermath. Truman Capote said that he had created a new type of book, the non-fiction novel, by applying traditional literary conventions to crime reporting. Capote learned of the quadruple slaying from a news article in The New York Times. He decided to go to Kansas and write about the murders, even before the killers, Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Smith, were captured. He brought his childhood friend and fellow author Harper Lee with him. Together they interviewed the local residents and the investigators assigned to the case. Capote and Lee took thousands of pages of notes, and Capote spent years working on the book, finally publishing in January 1966.

This is a good book if you are really into details. Capote dug deep into the lives of the killers, the deceased, the investigators, the lawyers and several members of the community to write this very detailed account of not only the murders, but also the lives of those connected with the case. The result is almost an overly comprehensive book. I can truly appreciate the amount of time and work that went into researching and writing this book (and the originality in Capote's writing style), but it got a little tiring to read about seemingly inconsequential information related to people who were connected to the case in one way or another. In short, this book could have been 100 pages shorter and still been as interesting. Instead, it wasn't the page turner I was expecting as evidenced by the fact it took me about twice as long to read it than most of the other books I have recently read.

As a matter of fact, if you took out the 100 extraneous pages, you'd be left with a fascinating study into the minds of cold blooded killers. Capote had exclusive access to the killers while they were in prison and took full advantage of it by asking them about every facet of their lives from childhood to specific details of their crimes, including the murders. Of course, since In Cold Blood, there have been many books written in a similar style, but I give this one credit for being original despite its shortcomings. Even if you don't read the book, I would highly recommend the movie, Capote, based on the life of Truman Capote during the time he was writing this book.


Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Would I read it again: No

In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences
by Truman Capote
Hardcover: 410 pages
January 1966