Why has it taken me so long to read Truman Capote’s “non-fiction novel” masterpiece In Cold Blood (1965)? I’m not quite sure.

I’ve known about the book and basically knew what it was about but I had never picked it up to read it. Simply a case of “too many books, too little time”.

In Cold Blood is a true crime account of the shocking murders of four members of the Clutter family in their rural Western Kansas farm house.

The killings were a result of a botched robbery by two ex-cons, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith.

Hickok was told by a fellow cell mate, who had worked for Mr. Cutter as a farmhand, that Mr Clutter was a rich man and had a safe in his office full of cash.

This was far from the truth. There was no safe, no huge amounts of cash. Hickock and Smith left the house with a small transistor radio, binoculars, and just $40.

What In Cold Blood does better that most “true crime” accounts is getting into the mind of a murderers and answering the question what makes a man kill another man, in cold blood.

Capote was able to do this by cultivating a friendship with the murderers, especially Perry Smith. This is shown in the film Capote (2005) with a brilliant performance by Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the southern writer.

In Cold Blood was Capote’s last great work. The book took six years to research and write and this prolonged process somehow destroyed him and he was never the same after and never finished another novel.

He became a regular on talk show where he was a true celebrity.