In Cold Blood

"In Cold Blood"
By: Truman Capote, 1966

"In Cold Blood" takes you deep into the brutal 1959 murders of the Clutter Family, a by all accounts all-American, picture perfect farming family from the small town of Holcomb, Kansas. Truman Capote left no stone unturned in his research for this book where you get to know and hear accounts from everyone in the town from Nancy Clutter's best friend, who found the family bound (each with a gunshot wound to the head) in their own home, to the lady working the counter at the local diner. A mass murder would make any town afraid but Holcomb was absolutely turned inside out. A town that had always been known as a quiet, friendly community soon became a place where just about everyone was under suspicion. It was no random murder, they thought. No stranger would just come through their town and murder an entire family in cold blood.....or would they?

Let me just say that I have read a lot...A LOT....of true crime books. The true crime genre is and has always been one of my absolute favorites. With that being said, this book is the best true crime book that I have ever read and is different from ANY other that I have ever read. Most true crime books are written almost like reports for school. Full of facts and dates and just straight to the point. Not Capote. His book is told as a story. He takes you on a journey through his descriptions of not only the town and the farm itself but the people. Capote makes sure that you KNEW the family. He also makes sure that you know the killers inside and out. I have never read another true crime book where the research was as exhausted as it was in "In Cold Blood". The smallest details of the crime are documented in this heart wrenching, unfathomable story of a real account of true evil. Everything about the crime itself, from the events leading up to it all the way through the bitter end, already made for an unbelievable, amazing story. If anyone else but Capote had gotten a hold of it, they never could have done it the justice that he did. It's poetic and haunting....mesmerizing and heartbreaking.....This book will give you chills....I easily give it 5 out of 5 hearts. I look forward to reading more of Capote's works in the future.

For more information on the Clutter Family murders including pictures of the family, investigators from the case, pictures of the killers, as well as pictures of the inside of the Clutter family home as it looks today, please visit
http://www2.ljworld.com/photos/galleries/2005/apr/03/in_cold_blood_a_legacy_in_photos/