In Cold Blood is a non-fiction novel by American author Truman Capote,
first published in 1966. It details the 1959 murders of four members of the
Clutter family in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas.
Capote learned of the quadruple murder before the killers were captured, and
he traveled to Kansas to write about the crime. He was accompanied by his
childhood friend and fellow author Harper Lee, and they interviewed residents
and investigators assigned to the case and took thousands of pages of notes.
Killers Richard Hickock and Perry Smith were arrested six weeks after the
murders and later executed by the state of Kansas. Capote ultimately spent six
years working on the book.