The book details the 1959 slaying of Herbert Clutter, a wealthy farmer from Holcomb, Kansas; his
wife, and two children. When Capote learned of the quadruple murder before the killers were captured,
he decided to travel to Kansas and write about the crime. Bringing his childhood friend and fellow
author Harper Lee along, together they interviewed local residents and investigators assigned to the
case and took thousands of pages of notes. The killers, Richard "Dick" Hickock and Perry Smith, were
arrested not long after the murders, and Capote ultimately spent six years working on the book. It is
considered the originator of the non-fiction novel and the forerunner of the New Journalism movement.

The plot weaves a complicated psychological story of two parolees who together commit a mass murder,
an act they were not capable of individually. Capote's book also details the lives of the victims and
the effect the crime had on the community where they lived. A large part of the story involves the
dynamic psychological relationship of the two felons that culminated in this senseless crime. In Cold
Blood is often regarded as a pioneering work of true crime.

Read by Scott Brick

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