IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote. I just finished reading it again.

[raccoon]

I read it the first time not long after it came out (late 1960's). It really grabbed me then, and it does now.

This time as I read it, I was especially looking for what the author said about the killers' backgrounds. That's what interests me, and I think lots of people, about true crimes. Why did the perps do what they did? What made them that way?

I think that one thing that grabs people about IN COLD BLOOD is the stark contrast between the killers and the victims. The victims seem so nice, so normal. Ordinary, everyday decent people. The killers--it seems like everything they touch turns to crap. They'd work occasionally, then quit or lose their job and start looking for easy money--writing bad checks, stealing and then selling items.

Something else that caught my attention. After the murders, the killers were hitchhiking in the Mojave Desert. They were waiting for a lone driver, in a fairly decent car, so they could rob him, kill him, and leave him in the desert.

Like just about anything else, after they'd committed murder, it was easier for them to think about doing it again. And it was only chance that saved the life of a driver who did pick them up.

[Paladin]

1. Probably My Favorite Book Of All Time.

I wonder if those two killers could have ever imagined that four movies (three theatrical, one TV) would be made of their ugly acts? Or that Capote's brilliant book about those acts would ultimately destroy him? Tragic in so many ways.....

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. I believe that book

seriously affected Capote and Harper Lee. I don't wonder that she has stayed holed up in her house or that Capote would go off the rails. Realizing that such evil existed in excruciating detail would have given me permanent heebie jeebies.

[prc73450]

3. One of the best books I've read recently

[delphinium]

4. I read first when it was serialized.

I remember when it was serialized in a magazine (I forget if it was the New Yorker or what), but I waited with bated breath for each issue to come out so I could continue reading it. It really was a masterpiece of writing. Too bad Capote was such a nasty piece of work..:-(

[Manifestor_of_Light]

5. He invented the true crime genre.

Fatal Vision, about the Jeffrey McDonald case, is also quite good.

And the second true crime bestseller, Blood and Money, by Thomas Thompson, about a Houston case in 1969.

If you're into true crime, read those two!! They're excellent.

[raccoon]

6. Read FATAL VISION--Yes, it is good. Not sure about BLOOD & MONEY, I'll

look into that one.

[hamerfan]

7. Speaking of true crime,

I'm not a big Ann Rule fan, but her book Bitter Harvest is a good one! It's about the case of Debora Green, not someone you'd want to have for a mother, or even a neighbor! Worth reading the book.