This paper examines the novel, "In Cold Blood", and looks at how it is an exhaustively researched, in-depth report, not just
of events, but also the characters of the victims and their
killers. In particular, it explores how Capote's portrayal of the two killers, Perry Edward Smith and Richard Eugene Hickock, as
socially dysfunctional personalities capable of cold blooded killing ends up shaking the reader's equanimity by the very notion that such socially detached individuals could, in fact, be part of American society.