Written by Capote, In Cold Blood follows the murder of a Kansas family in November of 1959 and how their murderers were caught.
This novel was interesting, first in that it is a true story. There have been documents that have been found that bring into question the exact wording or timeline of the events that lead to Perry and Dick being caught and tried for killing the Cutter family, but still. This is a true story. This actually happened.
What is crazy is how loosely this murder came about, and how they only, truly, got caught because of the only connection they had to the family. That is why you read this book, from the get go you know who the killers are, but you don’t know “why this family?”, and that is what keeps you reading.
I don’t regret reading this book, which was a book club book of the month for one of my book clubs, but I do understand why this sat on my shelf for the past 8 years or so. (Yup, this has been on my TBR list for that long.) It is a book that is hard to get into because it doesn’t follow the usually mystery logic. You know who the killers are. And the reading is very interrupted. Capote put in so many quotes that it makes it hard to read, because it is written the way people talk. And the quotes, in so many places, feel terribly unnecessary.
With all of that, this is a good book to read. I understand why it was a book for one of the readings in high school. And, no, I don’t know how I got out of reading this. But I did. Ha!
This isn’t a book for little kids, just because it makes you realize that there are horrible people out there, who can kill for little or no reason. And if you are someone who doesn’t want to think about that, don’t read this. This is about a family who was well liked, who was killed for basically nothing.
Thinking about it? Give this novel a shot. This was a murder that rocked the country at the time, and two killers who, only through lady luck, were caught.
