In Cold Blood is the title of a famous book by the American author Truman Capote. The book, published in 1965, describes an actual multiple murder committed in 1959. Capote called his book a “nonfiction novel” because the work is written in the style of a novel but is based on actual events.
Capote based In Cold Blood on the deaths of the Clutter family, a respected farmer and his wife and two children, in Holcomb, Kansas. The family was brutally murdered during a robbery attempt by two former convicts, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. Capote interviewed the townspeople of Holcomb as well as the killers to re-create the crime and the psychology of the two killers. The book follows Hickock and Smith’s escape to Mexico; their capture, trial, conviction, and unsuccessful legal appeals; and finally their execution by hanging in 1965.
Capote vividly described all the major characters in the story, including Alvin Dewey of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, who relentlessly pursued the killers. The book has been called a classic of New Journalism, a style of writing especially popular during the 1960’s and 1970’s. The New Journalists mixed traditional reporting with such techniques of the novel as dialogue, personal commentary by the author, and descriptive detail. In 1967, In Cold Blood was adapted into a highly praised documentary-style motion picture.
