True Crime

In Cold Blood

4.6

328 reviews343 pages · Random House · 1966 · ISBN 978-0-679-74558-4

The reporting of a Kansas murder, written with the pacing and interiority of a novel and the discipline of journalism.

Synopsis

Capote follows a killing in rural Kansas from the last ordinary evening of a family to the long procedural aftermath, reconstructing the lives of everyone the crime touched.

The book invented a form. It reads as narrative while insisting on the accuracy of reportage, and it still sets the standard our true crime readers measure everything against.

Editorial note

A dual-featured title on our shelf. Read it for the craft as much as the case, and notice how rarely the prose raises its voice.

Quotes readers kept

“The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call out there.”

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Reader reviews

Priya R.

March 2026

“I closed it and sat still for ten minutes”

Every month I finish a book and immediately want to call the seven other people who read it with me. This one I could not talk about for a full day. The letters in chapter nineteen rearranged the whole novel behind me.

EmotionalCharacter-driven

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Priya R. · March 2026