Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • In Cold Blood

  • By: Truman Capote
  • Narrated by: Scott Brick
  • Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (770 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
In Cold Blood cover art

In Cold Blood

By: Truman Capote
Narrated by: Scott Brick
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

Beloved cover art
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest cover art
The Executioner's Song cover art
Helter Skelter cover art
Blind Rage cover art
Salt of the Earth cover art
Breakfast at Tiffany's cover art
And Every Word Is True: Newfound Evidence Reveals Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" Is Not the End of the Story. cover art
2666 cover art
The Fight cover art
Inside the Mind of BTK cover art
Ella Maud cover art
No Country for Old Men cover art
Midnight Son cover art
Zodiac cover art
Jailbird cover art

Summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The most famous true crime novel of all time "chills the blood and exercises the intelligence" (The New York Review of Books)—and haunted its author long after he finished writing it.

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. 

In one of the first non-fiction novels ever written, Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, generating 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.

©1965 Truman Capote (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"The resulting chronicle is a masterpiece, agonizing, terrible, possessed, proof that the times, so surfeited with disasters, are still capable of tragedy." ( The New York Times Book Review)

What listeners say about In Cold Blood

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    541
  • 4 Stars
    161
  • 3 Stars
    45
  • 2 Stars
    11
  • 1 Stars
    12
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    540
  • 4 Stars
    97
  • 3 Stars
    26
  • 2 Stars
    7
  • 1 Stars
    7
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    480
  • 4 Stars
    129
  • 3 Stars
    40
  • 2 Stars
    11
  • 1 Stars
    10

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Cool, balanced recounting of brutal event

Capote avoids all the easy options. His book is not a blood and guts horror tale; it's not a socio-pschological tale trying to evince sympathy for the murderers; it's not a who dunnit detective story.
In a sense it's all these and more as he recounts events from multiple points of view - the murderers', the police, the community, the families affected, the judicial system - all are given their place so you have an objective and balanced account where you have to form your own views and decide where your own sympathies lie. Capote's tone is cool (old sense!) and measured throughout.
Well read by Scott Brick

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

34 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Exploring new grounds

OK, so I am 77, retired and now reading for pleasure, exploring new ground. Classics, Crime, comedy, anything that grabs me but particularly exploring authors I have not ever tried. This, my first book by Truman Capote, has held me bound to the suspense, true, but also to the style of writing, description, vocabulary narration all to class. A fantastic analysis of a true grim crime and all that fed into the mindset of the perpetrators through their short lives, people with nothing left to lose.
This has exercised my mind and my thinking in so many direction. I look forward to finding more of Capote’s work.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

I'm not against capital punishment...

... revenge is all it is."
I very recently read Helter Skelter for the first time and decided then to revisit Capote's In Cold Blood, which I first read in print form about 50 years ago, not long after publication. Whilst details of the crime and the search for the killers had faded, the characters had remained with me, as real as old friends, both the victims at the Cutter farm, and the two perpetrators themselves. This true story of a barbaric slaughter concentrates far more on all of the people involved than on the blood and gore, although, of necessity, this too is covered. Taking the crime and the Cutter family as a central point, Capote sends out a search light to focus on everyone involved, from the killers and law offices involved in the crime detection, to friends and townsfolk of the victims, family of the perpetrators and people they met along the way as they evaded discovery, prison contacts, before and after, and the people involved in the trial.

Truman Capote was trying a, then, experimental form of writing, a blend fiction and nonfiction. The murder of the Clutter family provided him with the opportunity to interview numerous people, reconstructing not just the crime, but also the atmosphere, thoughts, fears a nd beliefs by embellishing real conversation with his own in character artistic liscence. Now frequently used 'faction' this was, in the '60s, revolutionary. And Capote's fine writing and excellent presentation make this book as gripping and insightful as it was half a century ago, standing out when compared with more recent similar books. Narrator, Scott Brick (who also read the Manson murders account, Helter Skelter) is, as always, superb, easy on the ear, text beautifully cadenced: a very fine performance.I

This is a book not just for true crime readers but is also a beautifully written, character filled thriller and a tale of a place, time and relationships which reads just like an excellent novel. Highly recommended

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating

Brilliantly written, perfectly read. I highly recommend this book. Made more gripping by the fact it’s based on true events

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Highly thought provoking.

Scott Brick becomes almost indistinguishable from, at one with, the text - so good is his reading of this text. I think that this audiobook will take some beating. As for Capote's text - stunning literary art at its very best. Who would have thought that a story where the subject matter and ending are already known to the 'reader' could be so gripping? But it is. Of course it works at many levels... you become the omniscient being, fully informed with the detailed facts, able to make the final, informed, judgment on this matter.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Boring boring

Cant believe the reviews im 4 hours in and its the most boring true crime book ever overrated

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Superb Writing at its very best.

Wonderful crafted account. A masterpiece. Narrator was excellent. Always wanted to read this and it certainly lived up to all my expectations.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

one I'd been meaning to read/listen to for years

As a documented classic this was on my book bucket list for a long time and I was wholly underwhelmed.
a compelling tale but the performance was not terribly dynamic and the story itself overly long and often repetitive. felt like a true crime podcast at times. all in all I'm glad I listened but I don't understand what all the fuss is about.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

A classic, but a little too long

A classic of the true crime genre for its telling of a famous murder in 1959, and its consequences. To the fan of modern true crime, it may seem a little drawn out - but it is beautifully read.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

utterly Flawless

Un put downable read cover to cover in 2 days. just brilliant. what a writer Capote is.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful