In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood is the true story of the murder of the Clutter family in 1959 in Holcomb, Kansas. It was written by Truman Capote, and the writing of this book is the subject of the movie Capote. Although the book is not a mystery, it manages to be extremely suspenseful. We know who the murderers are, but don’t have a motive. The murder of the Clutter family, a wholesome, well-to-do, farmimg family seems almost completely random, as they had no “enemies” and there was nothing of real value to steal in their home, so robbery seems to be ruled out as a motive. The first part of the book focuses on the investigation of the crime, and the search for a motive. Finally, the perpetrators of the crime are captured, and the remainder of the book covers the trial and eventual execution of the killers. It falls under the category of “can’t put it down”. I can’t wait to see the movie, and I’m really glad that I read the book before seeing the movie. I highly recommend this one.
February 28th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
Hey–I saw the movie, but did not read the book yet, and probably won’t–let’s blame it on ADD. I thought the movie was very well acted overall, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) and the woman who played Harper Lee were worthy of their oscar nominations, but I have a major problem with one aspect of the movie–there was no explanation whatsoever of how and why the killers were able to win multiple stays of execution and prolonged appeals which was essential to Capote’s research for the book, as it took him awhile to get the killers to talk about key issues. A buddy of mine said that that was glossed over to keep the focus on Capote, but I think the film editor got a little too happy with the scissors. It’s not an exceptionally long film, and ten mins. or so on that topic would’ve improved the movie tremendously in my opinion. Still, definitely worth the $8.50, or the cost of a DVD-R, if you know what I mean.