Book Review

I finished Truman Capote's In Cold Blood for my college class. The book is brilliantly written and researched. Capote tells of the murder of an entire family in a small town in Kansas. Thanks to Capote's meticulous research, Capote is able to tell the story in chronological order starting with events just prior to the murders. He then goes on to tell about the investigation, how the murderers were caught, tried, and finally hung. Capote draws the reader into the story and helps them to get to know the family that is killed. One feels acutely the horror of what was done to them. We also learn about the two men responsible for the murders. One is a man who as a child just couldn't get a break and had a very traumatic childhood. The other is a man who perhaps wasn't sufficiently disciplined as a child and got into bigger and bigger trouble. Both men clearly have problems.

One particularly interesting feature of the novel is that Capote doesn't pass any judgments on any of the people in the novel. He also doesn't try to argue for a particular cause. When the prosecution goes for the death penalty for the two murderers. Capote doesn't try to argue for or against capital punishment. He tells the story in a perfectly neutral tone. Capote does a brilliant job of getting the reader's attention and then holding it. At the end of the story, Capote not only tells of how one of the detectives involved in catching the murderers found closure, he helps the reader find closure too. The reader finishes the story saddened by what happened but like one of the girl's who knew the murdered daughter, we move on. Life is like that.

If you want to read a gripping story of murder, crime solving, and justice, you may want to read In Cold Blood. It is a superbly written story that draws the reader in, shocks and wrenches them by what happens, and leaves us a bit wiser by what happens. It is definitely worth reading.