In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

If you live alone, do not read this book after dark. This is the story of the Clutter family murders that took place in Kansas in 1959. In penning this true crime story, Truman initiated what was then considered a new genre: the non-fiction novel. His descriptions are gruesome but not sensationalist – they are strongly connected to the facts of the case. With so much plot exposition it was difficult to get into the book at first, but Capote succeeded in establishing the character of the victims, gaining the reader's sympathy and deepening the true horror of the crime. The following quote shows some of the inner conflict that Dewy experienced, as did several other officers assigned to the case. “Dewy could not forget [the victims’] sufferings. Nonetheless, he found it possible to look at the man beside him without anger – with, rather, a measure of sympathy – for Perry Smith’s life had been no bed of roses, but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another. Dewy’s sympathy, however, was not deep enough to accommodate either forgiveness or mercy.”