In Cold Blood

I just finished In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Working as a police reporter, which I did for a few years, allows you an interesting perspective on crime and how unrandom (I know that’s not a word) it is. Victims, as a rule, are generally victimized by people they know. In most cases of murder, which was the central event of the book, the killer knows the person they killed.

Husbands kill wives. Wives kill husbands. Drug dealers kill users. Users kill people they know to fund their drug habit. In 1959, the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas was slaughtered by two men they had never met. According to one member of the community, it’s as if they were “struck by lightning.” The slayings, perpetrated by Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, are as cold blooded as crime can get. The killers go to the home looking for a safe full of cash, don’t find it and then murder Herb, Bonnie, Nancy and Kenyon Clutter.  Reading Smith recount the gruesome, grisly crime forced me to pace the room and shadowbox I was so furious.

This book, which has rightfully earned the title of American classic, is fascinating for a number of reasons. Capote utilized subtly and understatement in devastating ways. Horrifying details are accounted with complete frankness and normalcy. It’s like reading a grocery list and finding that the last item on the crumpled sheet of paper is an order to kill someone.

• Ham
• Skim Milk
• Cheese sticks
• V8
• Green Onions
• Slice cashier’s throat with knife swiped from butcher

Capote also breaks down Smith and Hickock’s psychological make-up, but seems to devote more time to Smith. Smith lived through a tortuous childhood and continually saw himself as a victim. He said that his possible reason for killing the Clutters was a matter of vengeance. The family never wronged him, but he projected a life of slights, either real or perceived, onto the victims. Honor, though, seems to be a large part of his psyche. Smith claims he stopped Hickock from raping Nancy Clutter. An odd and disturbing dichotomy. 

That’s it. 

Up next is Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollack.