Nutshell Summary

In Cold Blood is the story of an apparently motiveless murder of an innocent family, and the ramifications for the town and people involved. The full title of the text is In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences, which hints at Capote’s dual focus on both the crime and its reverberations. But it is also a text that combines the credibility of a real story, the freedom of a documentary, the allure of a film, and the precision of poetry. This synthesis of genres and styles is something we will examine throughout this Text Guide, and is always worth keeping in mind when we talk about the narrative itself.