By Kat Johnson, Audible Editor

IN COLD BLOOD IS STILL THE GOLD STANDARD IN TRUE CRIME

In Cold Blood was the first true crime book I ever read, and after that, the bar was set. I was a junior in high school and a massive bookworm, though until then I’d read almost exclusively fiction, usually of the Great American Novel variety. For all I knew when I first picked it up, at a thrift shop or take-one/leave-one library where I hunted down cheap books, it WAS fiction, such was the towering reputation of Truman Capote and the breathless description of murder and Americana on the back cover.

Of course, as I now know full well, In Cold Blood is Capote’s 1966 masterpiece of narrative nonfiction—so rich in detail, dialogue, and character that it’s also called a "nonfiction novel"—and the crime it depicts was real, a media sensation in its day. Capote had already published a bestselling debut novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948), and the triumphant novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) when he went to Holcomb, Kansas with his friend Harper Lee to report on the shocking murders of four members of the popular and prosperous Clutter family, inspired by little more than a brief New York Times article calling it "the case of a psychotic killer." Armed with charm, confidence, and boundless ambition, Capote gained the locals’ trust and soon convinced all the key sources that his story was the one they had to be part of.

Capote was right. Like Serial a half-century later, In Cold Blood ushered in a new kind of true crime storytelling, one that centered both journalistic excellence and the narrative art of fiction. Showcasing Capote’s immaculate prose and intimate access to those involved (particularly convicted killer Perry Smith), the book was an instant success whose reputation has only grown. From its frightening description of the murders—the lonely Clutter farmhouse and open Kansas plain scare me to bits even without the quadruple homicide, thank you—to Capote’s authenticity-soaked regionalisms and atmosphere, In Cold Blood is an entire world as seen through the lens of a crime: the random, senseless violence; the hyper-nuanced portraits of the victims and killers, who lives might have turned out some other way, any other way; the peculiar celebrity of murder; the slow machinations of justice and the horror of death row.

I will never forget that first time reading it, which transported me from my dorm room in Rhode Island to a Kansas farmhouse, then to a claustrophobic prison cell. More recently I discovered the audio version, a legend in its own right thanks to narrator Scott Brick’s pitch-perfect performance, which seamlessly marries Capote’s haunting authorial voice with homespun prairie-isms (I lost count of all the "I don’t rightly know"s). With chilling precision and palpable respect for the material, Brick captivates as the tale gathers momentum. Depending on where you are when you listen, his performance might even be too immersive for comfort.

True crime conveys truths about the world that can be hard to hear. But in Capote’s telling and Brick’s performance, In Cold Blood beats with beauty, humanity, and propulsive storytelling to keep us listening through the darkness and through the decades.

Continue reading Kat's review >