--- product_id: 290388 title: "In Cold Blood" price: "£16.23" currency: GBP in_stock: true reviews_count: 9 url: https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/290388-in-cold-blood store_origin: GB region: United Kingdom --- # In Cold Blood **Price:** £16.23 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** In Cold Blood - **How much does it cost?** £16.23 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.uk](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/290388-in-cold-blood) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description In Cold Blood [Truman Capote] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In Cold Blood Review: Suspenseful, empathetic, sparsely elegant, respectful, and above all, tragic - I have meant to read this book for some time. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that seeing the Capote film is what finally induced me to read it, but I suppose that must be true. I had seen the film the previous weekend, bought this book during the following week, and just this past weekend, devoured it in all of two days. Capote's masterpiece tells the story of the senseless, brutal killing of a rural Kansas family in 1959. It is beautifully written from start to finish -- in an understated way. If you come into this experience, as I did, conscious of the narcissism of the author, you might be surprised at the writing style. It is very humble, no Joycean or Nabokovian literary showing off. The story is paramount; the author does an amazing job of staying invisible, and respecting that story. Respect is the feeling that is conveyed throughout the book. The telling is very respectful of the Clutter family; you learn of what remarkable people they were, even as they met their ends. The author is also fundamentally respectful of the people of the town, and of the local law enforcement. The book is not without its implied questioning of the judicial process, but again, I greatly appreciated the empathy and respect that pervaded the book. This fundamental respect for human dignity even, in a more disturbing way, pervades even the discussion of the lives of the killers. The author candidly relates the biographies of these two men. On one level, this conveys an understanding of how they came to be what they were, but on a deeper level, it's all still a mystery. Left unanswered, still, is what really causes a man to be a killer. There is a great sense of tragedy throughout the relating of their formative lives -- perhaps not a respect for who they eventually were, but a respect for who they *could* have been. Extremely unsettling is the sheer randomness of it all. The chain of events that causes the Clutter family to be killed is so random, so out-of-the-blue. Capote conveys how thin is the line between everything all seeming well and orderly in the world, and disaster striking out of nowhere. Also coming through very clearly in this book is a cultural moment in time. You read it, feeling that this rural Kansas society is a vanished world. It's a stoic, God-fearing community, but the urban Capote betrays little condescension toward it. Quite the opposite; he seems duly impressed that the only reaction from the crowd to the killers' transference back to the town is one of silence -- no attempted violence, no shouted insults. The restraint and dignity of the townspeople amid this tragedy seems foreign to modern eyes. I found myself liking these people very much, despite my own preference for urban living. But nothing undoes the basic feeling of tragedy that pervades the book. The author sifts through an incredible amount of detail about the crime; information that could only have been gleaned with a tremendous amount of cooperation from the killers themselves. There are details here that we could never have known about unless both killers had related them in their own separate interviews: details both of the crime itself, and of their activities, and further crimes and near-crimes, when on the lam. The final portrait is of two worlds colliding -- a dysfunctional, violent world amid the undercurrents of society, rising up to strike the normal, orderly world of the Clutter family. It leaves the reader feeling as though nothing can be truly safe in our world, as long as the mysteries behind this story remain unresolved. Review: Good read - Liked the bok. I hadn't read this before. Fast interesting book. Good character development. I do recommend this book for anyone. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #2,528 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #2 in Criminology (Books) #6 in Murder & Mayhem True Accounts #7 in U.S. State & Local History | | Customer Reviews | 4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars (25,815) | | Dimensions | 5.15 x 0.78 x 8.02 inches | | Edition | Edition Unstated | | ISBN-10 | 0679745580 | | ISBN-13 | 978-0679745587 | | Item Weight | 9.3 ounces | | Language | English | | Print length | 343 pages | | Publication date | February 1, 1994 | | Publisher | Vintage | ## Images ![In Cold Blood - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81Y9w3D1MgL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Suspenseful, empathetic, sparsely elegant, respectful, and above all, tragic *by O***S on February 27, 2006* I have meant to read this book for some time. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that seeing the Capote film is what finally induced me to read it, but I suppose that must be true. I had seen the film the previous weekend, bought this book during the following week, and just this past weekend, devoured it in all of two days. Capote's masterpiece tells the story of the senseless, brutal killing of a rural Kansas family in 1959. It is beautifully written from start to finish -- in an understated way. If you come into this experience, as I did, conscious of the narcissism of the author, you might be surprised at the writing style. It is very humble, no Joycean or Nabokovian literary showing off. The story is paramount; the author does an amazing job of staying invisible, and respecting that story. Respect is the feeling that is conveyed throughout the book. The telling is very respectful of the Clutter family; you learn of what remarkable people they were, even as they met their ends. The author is also fundamentally respectful of the people of the town, and of the local law enforcement. The book is not without its implied questioning of the judicial process, but again, I greatly appreciated the empathy and respect that pervaded the book. This fundamental respect for human dignity even, in a more disturbing way, pervades even the discussion of the lives of the killers. The author candidly relates the biographies of these two men. On one level, this conveys an understanding of how they came to be what they were, but on a deeper level, it's all still a mystery. Left unanswered, still, is what really causes a man to be a killer. There is a great sense of tragedy throughout the relating of their formative lives -- perhaps not a respect for who they eventually were, but a respect for who they *could* have been. Extremely unsettling is the sheer randomness of it all. The chain of events that causes the Clutter family to be killed is so random, so out-of-the-blue. Capote conveys how thin is the line between everything all seeming well and orderly in the world, and disaster striking out of nowhere. Also coming through very clearly in this book is a cultural moment in time. You read it, feeling that this rural Kansas society is a vanished world. It's a stoic, God-fearing community, but the urban Capote betrays little condescension toward it. Quite the opposite; he seems duly impressed that the only reaction from the crowd to the killers' transference back to the town is one of silence -- no attempted violence, no shouted insults. The restraint and dignity of the townspeople amid this tragedy seems foreign to modern eyes. I found myself liking these people very much, despite my own preference for urban living. But nothing undoes the basic feeling of tragedy that pervades the book. The author sifts through an incredible amount of detail about the crime; information that could only have been gleaned with a tremendous amount of cooperation from the killers themselves. There are details here that we could never have known about unless both killers had related them in their own separate interviews: details both of the crime itself, and of their activities, and further crimes and near-crimes, when on the lam. The final portrait is of two worlds colliding -- a dysfunctional, violent world amid the undercurrents of society, rising up to strike the normal, orderly world of the Clutter family. It leaves the reader feeling as though nothing can be truly safe in our world, as long as the mysteries behind this story remain unresolved. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Good read *by K***R on November 7, 2025* Liked the bok. I hadn't read this before. Fast interesting book. Good character development. I do recommend this book for anyone. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Remarkable Page-Turner Even Though You Already Know the Outcome *by S***S on September 27, 2009* When a book like IN COLD BLOOD reaches the level of being a classic, there has to be a reason. Consider the following two excerpts: "The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them." "Then, starting home, he walked toward the trees, and under them, leaving behind him the big sky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat." The former excerpt is from Capote's opening paragraph; the latter cointains his closing sentence. Both are extraordinary, especially for their time, in capturing the mood and poetry of a place in the middle of a true-life story of a horrific mass murder. As is certainly well known, IN COLD BLOOD is Truman Capote's magazine-article-turned full-length-docu-novel about the murders of four members of the Clutter family in their Holcomb, Kansas, farmhouse in November 1959. The two killers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, were ultimately caught, tried, sentenced, and executed, factual matters that are still commonly known today thanks to two recent movies about Capote's life and his efforts to write the book. Even at its publication, IN COLD BLOOD was not a detective story in the traditional sense, since everyone already knew the perpetrators and the case's eventual disposition. In an era when such incidents were reported either factually (newspaper style) or sensationally (crime magazine style), Truman Capote effectively created an entire new genre: journalism as art form. Writing with a level of descriptive detail about places and events that create a strong sense of immediacy in the reader's mind, he begins his story with a re-creation of the Clutter family's last day of life. The effect is profound and eerie, since these pages are read with a foreknowledge of death not shared by the real-life characters on the page. Capote builds his suspense masterfully, alternating between the movements of Hickock and Smith and those of the Clutters (husband and father Herbert, perennially sick wife and mother Bonnie, intelligent, tinkering son Kenyon, and All-American sweetheart daughter and town darling Nancy. As he brings the two parties closer and closer together, Capote continues to fill in background on their respective lives. By the time his orchestrated characters have reached their mutual, bloody crescendo, the reader is intimately acquainted with them as individuals and their respective life stories. Thus, the author gives us individuals with whom we are intimate as characters in a novel, yet they are real people about whom he is reporting in a senseless, horrifying mass murder story. This is Capote's genius and the source of his book's classic status - factual reporting that reads like a novel, displaying the intimacy with its characters that is normally reserved for the so-called "omniscient author," the one who can hear, share, and express his or her characters' most private thoughts and motivations. Capote's pacing and remarkable eye for detail never relent as the story moves from crime to investigation, arrest, and trial by jury. He maneuvered himself into a situation where he was privy to every detail of the police investigation; it is equally clear he had extended access to Hickock and Smith throughout their ordeal, up to and including their ultimate disposition. While it was doubtless a level of access no longer available to reporters or writers, Capote took maximum advantage of it in crafting his story. What comes out of it, surprisingly, is a tale of two socially maladjusted young men of above-average intelligence whose trial was of questionable fairness, particularly as regards the mental health of one of them (who was probably more criminally insane than scheming murderer). In one of the book's most telling moments, Capote recounts the reports that the court-appointed psychiatrist would have rendered had the judge (and Kansas state law at the time) allowed them to do so. IN COLD BLOOD is truly a master work by an effete, East Coast reporter who beat the odds (and prejudices, no doubt) and entwined himself in his story and the lives of its actors to an unheard-of degree. The result was, and is, more than just a gripping account of a horrendous crime. It is a study in criminality: its victims, its effect on their families and community, its perpetrators and their families, even on the law enforcement personnel involved in the investigation. One can hardly imagine a more finely drawn study of a single crime and its all-too-human impact, presented in a form that remains to this day a page-turner in the very best sense of that phrase. ## Frequently Bought Together - In Cold Blood - Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI - Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (One World Essentials) --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/290388-in-cold-blood](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/290388-in-cold-blood) --- *Product available on Desertcart United Kingdom* *Store origin: GB* *Last updated: 2026-05-16*