I don't know why I waited so long after seeing and liking Capote to read the book on which the film was partly based, but I'm glad I finally got around to it, as In Cold Blood is a magnificent read. The first ever true-crime novel (or 'non-fiction novel' as Capote himself called it), In Cold Blood tells the story of the quadruple murder that shook the Kansas community of Holcomb in 1959 and which Capote then spent six years investigating, talking to the bereaved villagers, the detectives who worked on the case and the murderers themselves, with one of whom he may well have fallen in love; his sympathy for him shines through loud and clear. The amazing thing about the book is that all these different characters have their own voices, and they are all different and convincing -- a feat all the more impressive when you know that Capote conducted his interviews without a notepad or a tape recorder. The result of all these interviews is a kaleidoscope of impressions, a piece of journalism which somehow manages to read like high literature -- a page-turner which succeeds in conveying both the horror and the poetry of the crimes and lives described, and does so in Capote's trademark Beautiful English. No small feat, that.

The opening chapters of the book are brilliant. Capote introduces the reader to the reasonably prosperous town of Holcomb, its cheerful inhabitants and the mostly happy lives the Cutter family were leading before Perry Smith and Dick Hickock showed up and killed them. He then describes the murder scene and the early investigations, and shows how the community succumbs to paranoia and mistrust, as the locals are convinced the murderer is someone from their midst. Finally, he focuses on the murderers themselves, two seemingly likeable lads who for the longest time seem to get away with their crime. Clearly, neither of them has a conscience, but what they do have is dreams, hopes, plans and grudges, all of which are described in great detail and from several different points of view. The only thing that is not described in great detail in the first two thirds of the book is the gruesome murder itself. Capote wisely refrains from letting Smith and Hickock explain the hows and whys of the massacre until they are finally arrested, which makes the story gripping; you really want to go on reading to find out why exactly the Cutters had to die and which of the two men pulled the trigger and therefore is the greater villain. When you finally do find out these things, the answer is both surprising and right; such is the ingenuity of Capote's writing that you can't guess but don't feel cheated afterwards, either.

Sadly, the story somewhat goes off the rails once the murder case has been solved. Rather than quickly wrapping the story up after Smith's and Hickock's arrests, as he probably should have done, Capote takes his time to focus on their trial, their life on death row and their equally notorious fellow inmates, whose stories may have meant something to contemporary readers but which rather detract from the main story now. He also uses this part of the book to debate the issue of capital punishment, which is interesting but again detracts from the main story. Therefore, I found the final eighty pages of the book a bit of a let-down. Thankfully, though, the first 250 pages are excellent -- the best mix of fact and fiction I have ever read, I think.