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  • In Cold Blood

  • By: Truman Capote
  • Narrated by: Scott Brick
  • Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (15,075 ratings)

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In Cold Blood

By: Truman Capote
Narrated by: Scott Brick
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Editorial review


By Kat Johnson, Audible Editor

IN COLD BLOOD IS STILL THE GOLD STANDARD IN TRUE CRIME

In Cold Blood was the first true crime book I ever read, and after that, the bar was set. I was a junior in high school and a massive bookworm, though until then I’d read almost exclusively fiction, usually of the Great American Novel variety. For all I knew when I first picked it up, at a thrift shop or take-one/leave-one library where I hunted down cheap books, it WAS fiction, such was the towering reputation of Truman Capote and the breathless description of murder and Americana on the back cover.

Of course, as I now know full well, In Cold Blood is Capote’s 1966 masterpiece of narrative nonfiction—so rich in detail, dialogue, and character that it’s also called a "nonfiction novel"—and the crime it depicts was real, a media sensation in its day. Capote had already published a bestselling debut novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948), and the triumphant novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) when he went to Holcomb, Kansas with his friend Harper Lee to report on the shocking murders of four members of the popular and prosperous Clutter family, inspired by little more than a brief New York Times article calling it "the case of a psychotic killer." Armed with charm, confidence, and boundless ambition, Capote gained the locals’ trust and soon convinced all the key sources that his story was the one they had to be part of.

Capote was right. Like Serial a half-century later, In Cold Blood ushered in a new kind of true crime storytelling, one that centered both journalistic excellence and the narrative art of fiction. Showcasing Capote’s immaculate prose and intimate access to those involved (particularly convicted killer Perry Smith), the book was an instant success whose reputation has only grown. From its frightening description of the murders—the lonely Clutter farmhouse and open Kansas plain scare me to bits even without the quadruple homicide, thank you—to Capote’s authenticity-soaked regionalisms and atmosphere, In Cold Blood is an entire world as seen through the lens of a crime: the random, senseless violence; the hyper-nuanced portraits of the victims and killers, who lives might have turned out some other way, any other way; the peculiar celebrity of murder; the slow machinations of justice and the horror of death row.

I will never forget that first time reading it, which transported me from my dorm room in Rhode Island to a Kansas farmhouse, then to a claustrophobic prison cell. More recently I discovered the audio version, a legend in its own right thanks to narrator Scott Brick’s pitch-perfect performance, which seamlessly marries Capote’s haunting authorial voice with homespun prairie-isms (I lost count of all the "I don’t rightly know"s). With chilling precision and palpable respect for the material, Brick captivates as the tale gathers momentum. Depending on where you are when you listen, his performance might even be too immersive for comfort.

True crime conveys truths about the world that can be hard to hear. But in Capote’s telling and Brick’s performance, In Cold Blood beats with beauty, humanity, and propulsive storytelling to keep us listening through the darkness and through the decades.

Continue reading Kat's review >

Publisher's summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The most famous true crime novel of all time "chills the blood and exercises the intelligence" (The New York Review of Books)—and haunted its author long after he finished writing it.

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

In one of the first non-fiction novels ever written, Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, generating both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.

©1965 Truman Capote (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A masterpiece ... a spellbinding work." —Life

"A remarkable, tensely exciting, superbly written 'true account'. " —The New York Times

"The best documentary account of an American crime ever written ... The book chills the blood and exercises the intelligence ... harrowing." —The New York Review of Books

Featured Article: The top 100 classics of all time


Before we whipped out our old high school syllabi and dug deep into our libraries to start selecting contenders for this list, we first had to answer the question, "How do we define a classic?" The answer isn’t as straightforward as you might guess, though there’s a lot to be said for the old adage, "You know it when you see it" (or, in this case, hear it). Of course, most critically, each of our picks had to be fabulous in audio. So dust off your aspirational listening list—we have some amazing additions you don’t want to miss.

What listeners say about In Cold Blood

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    4 out of 5 stars

Compelling!

Great book! Now I understand why Truman Capote became so famous! Fascinating story, a very easy read!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Meet Perry and Dick...who is the killer?

Meet Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, two young men that eliminate a family. Why? Find out in this great book read by one of the best.

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absolutely great

superb writing with great thought and tear jerking story, I had to read this book for school and what a read

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Masterpiece

Hearing the original book along with seeing Capote and the film In Cold Blood provides a deeper appreciation for this new literary form ......heartbreak and all. First saw movie with Robert Blake when it first came out and stayed impressed to this day.

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very great, but...

I first read this book a long time ago, since which time I've seen the movie repeatedly, and the "about" movie(s).

It is great, don't get me wrong. This is a great American book -- awesome storytelling, in a stunningly original prose voice that grabs completely. The dude is a master.

But I have to say that this time around, I feel that it bogs down in the second act -- mostly in the biographical minutiae about Perry. It seems -- perhaps because of the weird interpersonal symbiosis that developed between them? -- that Capote falls into a trap of imagining Perry as something much more interesting than he really was. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to drone on and on about Perry's useless existence, his pseudo-intellectual fancies, etc., and I'm thinking "So what...get the noose already".

And Scott Brick does a fine job. But those extended monologues -- many in female voices -- require him to adopt a quasi-acting approach. This is no reflection on the reader himself -- he really rises to the occasion. But the nature of the material itself had me thinking at times that plain old reading (with a real paper book!!) would be a better fit.

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my review

The narration was very good and made the book easier to follow. The book itslef is fairly interesting, but at times became tedious.

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fantastic story, gorgeous prose, talented voice

left me wanting more! I felt I was there with the main characters, intense and gratifying

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In cold blood

It was difficult to listen to the book. It seemed to idealize the evil that was in these two men and attempted to make one of the men a sympathetic character.

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Great book

Loved it. Compelling and riveting. It was as if I was actually witnessing the story first hand.

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Riveting story

I do not usually listen to nor read murder thrillers but this was terrific.
Well done all aspects.
S. M.

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