In Cold Blood

The book's been around for over 40 years. But I just got around to reading it this week. I'm up toward the end. The trial for the suspects is happening. I've actually read at the end, since I wanted to see if a detail was mentioned that I saw on an old newspaper microfilm. It was.

Everyone's read it probably. But it's one of several million that I never got to, actually never had an interest in. I'm not into crime that much. I'm trying to think of why I started it--- oh, yeah, I was at a garage sale and there was a copy of it. I was looking for a copy of it in my basement, though, one day, figuring I had it, so maybe the subject was mentioned somewhere. I never found it, but at this garage sale there was a copy.

Anyway, it's a great book, Truman Capote, of course. A murder case in Kansas, 1959, getting to the bottom of it, then dealing with the suspects once they're caught. I didn't know any of the details, as it turned out, since I just hadn't paid attention to it. The name of the people killed, all of it, all of it was new to me.

Now I've looked up several of the stories on newspaperarchive.com. And have checked out some of the details from those sources. Including one story I saw today about one of the suspects, convicted by this point and on death row, Richard Hickok, who signed up to have his eyes donated after he was hung. The story told that they took them to, I believe, the University of Kansas Medical Center, and a woman got one and a man got the other. So that's why I was looking at the end of the book, to see if this was mentioned, and it was. In the book it's in a couple quick sentences, and seems more sarcastic.

It's definitely a page turner, if you haven't had a chance to read it. There's a few sections that could've been cut down, like Perry Smith's personal details go on too long. As to the police at that time, they seem a little out of touch. At one point, I mean, they know the suspects are in Kansas City, they know what kind of car they're driving, they know the license number. Yet they're still able to leave town, proceed all the way to Florida, then across country to Albuquerque, then to Las Vegas. Only at that point do the police notice the car and pull them over. Wouldn't you expect a little quicker capture than that?