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In Cold Blood Paperback – September 1, 2000

by Capote Truman (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 22,399 ratings
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Controversial and compelling, In Cold Blood reconstructs the murder in 1959 of a Kansas farmer, his wife and both their children. Truman Capote's comprehensive study of the killings and subsequent investigation explores the circumstances surrounding this terrible crime and the effect it had on those involved. At the centre of his study are the amoral young killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickcock, who, vividly drawn by Capote, are shown to be reprehensible yet entirely and frighteningly human. The book that made Capote's name, In Cold Blood is a seminal work of modern prose, a remarkable synthesis of journalistic skill and powerfully evocative narrative.

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  1. Print length
    352 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    PENGUIN
  4. Publication date
    September 1, 2000
  5. Dimensions
    7.76 x 5.08 x 0.76 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0141182571
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0141182575
  8. See all details
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  1. Imagination, of course, can open any door—turn the key and let terror walk right in.
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  2. Nothing is more usual than to feel that others have shared in our failures, just as it is an ordinary reaction to forget those who have shared in our achievements.
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  3. Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there.
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ PENGUIN; 1.4.2000 edition (September 1, 2000)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0141182571
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0141182575
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.1 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.76 x 5.08 x 0.76 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 22,399 ratings

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Truman Capote

Truman Capote

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Truman Capote was born in New Orleans in 1925 and was raised in various parts of the south, his family spending winters in New Orleans and summers in Alabama and New Georgia. By the age of fourteen he had already started writing short stories, some of which were published. He left school when he was fifteen and subsequently worked for the New Yorker which provided his first - and last - regular job. Following his spell with the New Yorker, Capote spent two years on a Louisiana farm where he wrote Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948). He lived, at one time or another, in Greece, Italy, Africa and the West Indies, and travelled in Russia and the Orient. He is the author of many highly praised books, including A Tree of Night and Other Stories (1949), The Grass Harp (1951), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958), In Cold Blood (1965), which immediately became the centre of a storm of controversy on its publication, Music for Chameleons (1980) and Answered Prayers (1986), all of which are published by Penguin. Truman Capote died in August 1984.

Photo by Jack Mitchell [CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Top reviews from the United States

Shelley Langton
5.0 out of 5 stars Ground breaking true crime novel
Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2024
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Even 50 years later, this classic still captivates. Capote's brilliant prose brings the events surrounding the murder of the Cuttler family to life in vivid detail. His even-handed, thoroughly researched retelling focuses not only on the lives of the victims but on the perpetrators, giving humanity to all in this horrific crime. A great book with which to examine the death penalty.
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Jason West
4.0 out of 5 stars In Cold Blood is a well written book
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2022
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Throughout this novel, it discusses the death penalty and the judicial system’s role in deciding the outcome of the trial. In Cold Blood, written by Truman Capote, illustrates how quickly a small town turned on each other in the mists of tragedy when they believed the murderer to be one of their own. The book follows the life and death of the Clutter family and the lifespan of Perry and Dick. Perry and Dick are both convicted felons, Capote illustrates their lives together after they were released from jail as well as flashbacks from times in their life before jail. Perry Smith and Dick Hickok were partners after jail despite the dramatic contrasts in their childhoods. Perry had a traumatic childhood, with 2 of his siblings dead before the time he turned 30. He also suffered from a motorcycle accident which disfigured the lower half of his body and caused him to become addicted to painkillers. Dick lived a somewhat normal childhood with 2 loving parents. The Clutter’s were a well-respected wealthy family in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas. On November 15, 1959, the Clutter family was killed with a shotgun held a few inches away from their face. Alvin Dewey, the lead detective on the case, struggled with finding a motive for their murders as there were almost no clues. This novel follows the Clutter family case with new clues and a possible motive coming to light. The title In Cold Blood tells the reader that the novel is going to be about a merciless killing that we later find out was driven by greed. Truman Capote won the O. Henry Memorial Short Story Prize twice for his short stories such as A Tree of Night and was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In Cold Blood was Truman Capote’s only true crime novel, however, he wrote many other novels such as Other Voices, and Other Rooms. In Cold Blood was published in 1965. Truman Capote well illustrates how easy it is for people to become mistrusting and turn on each other. By the end of the novel the citizens of Holcomb as well as the individuals involved in the trial are on edge and are beginning not to trust each other. Capote creates a good hook and intrigues the reader by telling the reader from the start that the Clutter family is going to be killed. The reader will learn throughout the novel that people change and not everyone can be trusted no matter what you have gone through with that person. In Cold Blood is mainly for people ages 16+ because the details of the murder are not appropriate for children under that age. In Cold Blood is intriguing and unlike most true crime books that I have read, because of the immense detail Truman Capote puts into the backstories of all the characters including the other convicts and individuals Perry and Dick encounter in their travels. In Cold Blood is available on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble for prices ranging from $10.29-$16.95 depending on where the book is purchased.
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Steve Koss
5.0 out of 5 stars A Remarkable Page-Turner Even Though You Already Know the Outcome
Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2009
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When a book like IN COLD BLOOD reaches the level of being a classic, there has to be a reason. Consider the following two excerpts:

"The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them."

"Then, starting home, he walked toward the trees, and under them, leaving behind him the big sky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat." The former excerpt is from Capote's opening paragraph; the latter cointains his closing sentence. Both are extraordinary, especially for their time, in capturing the mood and poetry of a place in the middle of a true-life story of a horrific mass murder.

As is certainly well known, IN COLD BLOOD is Truman Capote's magazine-article-turned full-length-docu-novel about the murders of four members of the Clutter family in their Holcomb, Kansas, farmhouse in November 1959. The two killers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, were ultimately caught, tried, sentenced, and executed, factual matters that are still commonly known today thanks to two recent movies about Capote's life and his efforts to write the book. Even at its publication, IN COLD BLOOD was not a detective story in the traditional sense, since everyone already knew the perpetrators and the case's eventual disposition.

In an era when such incidents were reported either factually (newspaper style) or sensationally (crime magazine style), Truman Capote effectively created an entire new genre: journalism as art form. Writing with a level of descriptive detail about places and events that create a strong sense of immediacy in the reader's mind, he begins his story with a re-creation of the Clutter family's last day of life. The effect is profound and eerie, since these pages are read with a foreknowledge of death not shared by the real-life characters on the page. Capote builds his suspense masterfully, alternating between the movements of Hickock and Smith and those of the Clutters (husband and father Herbert, perennially sick wife and mother Bonnie, intelligent, tinkering son Kenyon, and All-American sweetheart daughter and town darling Nancy.

As he brings the two parties closer and closer together, Capote continues to fill in background on their respective lives. By the time his orchestrated characters have reached their mutual, bloody crescendo, the reader is intimately acquainted with them as individuals and their respective life stories. Thus, the author gives us individuals with whom we are intimate as characters in a novel, yet they are real people about whom he is reporting in a senseless, horrifying mass murder story. This is Capote's genius and the source of his book's classic status - factual reporting that reads like a novel, displaying the intimacy with its characters that is normally reserved for the so-called "omniscient author," the one who can hear, share, and express his or her characters' most private thoughts and motivations.

Capote's pacing and remarkable eye for detail never relent as the story moves from crime to investigation, arrest, and trial by jury. He maneuvered himself into a situation where he was privy to every detail of the police investigation; it is equally clear he had extended access to Hickock and Smith throughout their ordeal, up to and including their ultimate disposition. While it was doubtless a level of access no longer available to reporters or writers, Capote took maximum advantage of it in crafting his story. What comes out of it, surprisingly, is a tale of two socially maladjusted young men of above-average intelligence whose trial was of questionable fairness, particularly as regards the mental health of one of them (who was probably more criminally insane than scheming murderer). In one of the book's most telling moments, Capote recounts the reports that the court-appointed psychiatrist would have rendered had the judge (and Kansas state law at the time) allowed them to do so.

IN COLD BLOOD is truly a master work by an effete, East Coast reporter who beat the odds (and prejudices, no doubt) and entwined himself in his story and the lives of its actors to an unheard-of degree. The result was, and is, more than just a gripping account of a horrendous crime. It is a study in criminality: its victims, its effect on their families and community, its perpetrators and their families, even on the law enforcement personnel involved in the investigation. One can hardly imagine a more finely drawn study of a single crime and its all-too-human impact, presented in a form that remains to this day a page-turner in the very best sense of that phrase.
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Bobby Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read
Reviewed in Canada on September 14, 2023
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"In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote is an absolute masterpiece of true crime literature. Capote's meticulous research and narrative skill turn a horrific real-life murder case into a gripping and emotionally charged story that's impossible to put down. This book is a compelling exploration of the human psyche and the consequences of violence, making it a must-read for fans of both true crime and literary non-fiction.
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Daniella Benedito
5.0 out of 5 stars Livro chegou antes do prazo, sem defeito é o que eu havia pedido.
Reviewed in Brazil on March 23, 2023
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Daniella Benedito
5.0 out of 5 stars Livro chegou antes do prazo, sem defeito é o que eu havia pedido.
Reviewed in Brazil on March 23, 2023
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Mat
5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping tale, well written
Reviewed in Germany on February 18, 2024
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You just have to be aware it actually happened like this so it borders on unethical voyeurism or exploitation
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Giorgio Gastaldello
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book
Reviewed in Italy on February 15, 2024
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Still a very modern approach to one of the saddest life realities!
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Giorgio Gastaldello
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book
Reviewed in Italy on February 15, 2024
Still a very modern approach to one of the saddest life realities!
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jose maria cazorla gahete
5.0 out of 5 stars rapidez
Reviewed in Spain on December 22, 2022
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todo correcto
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