In Cold Blood by Truman Capote published by Random House, New York. 1965. 1st Book Club Edition. (BCE). Hardcover book with dust jacket.

In Cold Blood is a non-fiction novel by American author Truman Capote. It was awarded an Edgar Award in 1966 for best fact-crime novel. Controversial and compelling, In Cold Blood reconstructs, combining fiction and journalism, the murder in 1959 of the Clutter family in the small farming town of Holcomb, Kansas, by Richard “Dick” Hickock and Perry Smith, two petty criminals. Truman Capote’s comprehensive study of the killings and subsequent investigation explores the circumstances surrounding this terrible crime and the effect it had on those involved.

Excerpt from The New York Times review published on January 16, 1966 by Conrad Knickerbocker: “With the obsessiveness of a man demonstrating a profound new hypothesis, he (Capote) spent more than five years unraveling and following to its end every thread in the killing of Herbert W. Clutter and his family. In Cold Blood, the resulting chronicle, is a masterpiece—agonizing, terrible, possessed, proof that the times, so surfeited with disasters, are still capable of tragedy.”

Excerpts from The Independent review published on May 13, 2020 by Kate Colquhoun: “Capote engages us from the outset with forensically precise detail that leaves no peeling flake of old Kansas paint unnoticed. First Holcomb, a small town on the limitless wheat plains; then the weather, "ideal for apple-eating, the whitest sunlight descending from the purest sky"; then the house, with spongy carpets, gleaming floors, the whiff of lemon-scented polish and crushed tissues in the corners of its bedroom drawers. In thus slowing the pace, Capote ramps up the tension. We know that this space and its bright silence will be violated. We know that the "certain foreign sounds" are gunshots that will snuff out the lives of four members of the kindly, Methodist Clutter family.”.

“Vivid, painstakingly constructed, simultaneously fevered and lingeringly sad, 'In Cold Blood' is a transfixing read.”

This book is on the following lists:

- 6th on The Best Southern Nonfiction of All Time (Oxford American)

- 49th on The 100 Greatest Novels (greatbooksguide.com)

- 53rd on Radcliffe's 100 Best Novels (Radcliffe Publishing Course)

- 96th on The Modern Library | 100 Best Nonfiction (The Modern Library)

- 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime (Amazon.com (USA))

- 100 Major Works of Modern Creative Nonfiction (About.com)

- 50 Books to (Re-)Read at 50 (nextavenue)

- The 100 Best Books in the World (AbeBooks.de (in German))

- 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime (Amazon.com (UK))

- The Best Classics (The Times)

- 100 Best Novels Written in English (The Guardian)

- 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (The Book)

- The 75 Best Books of the Past 75 Years (Parade Magazine)

- The New York Public Library's Books of the Century (New York Public Library)

CONDITION: This book is in very good condition. Binding is intact. Book shows normal fairly minor sign of storage & age. Pages have turned yellow from age. The book has "deckled edged" pages. The pages of the book are not smooth and appear uncut or untrimmed, but it is intentional. Deckle-edged books were the original standard in publishing to make books look and feel “antiquarian". The dust jacket however, is scuffed, torn, and ripped. Please see pictures. THE PICTURES ARE TO BE CONSIDERED AS PART OF THE DESCRIPTION. PLEASE REVIEW THEM FOR A BETTER IDEA OF CONDITION.