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April 30, 2006

Fifteenth Meeting - In Cold Blood

Our fifteenth meeting will be held at a member's house near Cambridge on Sunday 30th April, starting at 13:00.

Our book this month is In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

In-Cold-Blood.jpg

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.

This is a true masterpiece of creative nonfiction. The images of this tale continue to resonate in our minds: 16-year-old Nancy Clutter teaching a friend how to bake a cherry pie, Dick Hickock's black '49 Chevrolet sedan, Perry Smith's Gibson guitar and his dreams of gold in a tropical paradise - the blood on the walls and the final "thud-snap" of the rope-broken necks.

"The best documentary account of an American crime ever written... The book chills the blood and exercises the intelligence... harrowing." — The New York Review of Books

Posted by nathan at April 30, 2006 01:00 PM

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