The Bottom Line
Pros
- In Cold Blood feels more like fiction than journalistic nonfiction
- Truman Capote provides a unique look at a true crime
- Capote builds suspense and sympathy
- In Cold Blood raises questions of good & evil, crime & punishment
Cons
- Not everyone may be able to stomach the details of a multiple murder
- In Cold Blood is dense - This is not beach reading
Description
- In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is the story of a family of four in Kansas, murdered by shotguns
- The murderers had no apparent motive and left almost no clues
- In Cold Blood details the crime, investigation, arrest and execution of the murderers
- A unique look into the minds of the murderers and the different sides of a horrible event
- In Cold Blood by Truman Capote reads like fiction, yet is a factual work
Guide Review - In Cold Blood by Truman Capote - Book Review
Capote also allows different voices to tell the story, creating an intimacy between the readers and the murderers, the readers and the victims, and all the other players in this event--townspeople, investigators, friends of the family. This intimacy leads to sympathy, which can sometimes be disturbing. (How can I be so disgusted by this murder and yet still see the humanity in the murderers?)
In Cold Blood is an interesting study of crime and violence in America. The story is gripping. It is rightly a classic.
I would not, however, say that all people would enjoy In Cold Blood. (Enjoy, perhaps, is the wrong word -- I liked the book, but do not enjoy reading about a quadruple murder). I recommend In Cold Blood, but caution readers that it is not light reading.
