In December 1957 and January 1958, nineteen-year-old Charlie Starkweather embarked on a killing spree through Nebraska and Wyoming. Most of the murders took place in just over a week, an eight-day rampage of shootings and stabbings that confounded authorities and terrorized the general public. With his even younger girlfriend in tow, Charlie killed eleven people,…
Ever since reading Nancy Drew in third grade, I’ve wanted to write about crime. Or, more specifically, the mystery that so often comes hand in hand with crime. Between third grade and the time I eventually wrote Fake Plastic Girl and Fake Plastic World, I had many years to dive deeper into the world of…
I am in awe of Truman Capote’s work. He is an exquisite writer. If you read Other Voices Other Rooms, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Music for Chameleons, which includes the brilliant novella “Handcarved Coffins,” you’ll see what I mean. They are literary classics.
Based off the crimes made famous by Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, We Were Killers Once by Becky Masterman wonders what if Richard Hickock and Perry Smith were working with a third man—and what if he was still alive… On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter…
Jeremiah Beaufort became my monster while I was thinking of stories for my fourth book in a series with retired FBI agent Brigid Quinn. She adores her late-in-life husband Carlo, an ex-priest. They couldn’t be more different, and she continues to hide her past several years into their marriage. I was talking to my agent…
Becky Masterman, author of the Brigid Quinn mystery series, introduces us to her newest novel, We Were Killers Once. Based off the crimes made famous by Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, We Were Killers Once wonders what if Richard Hickock and Perry Smith were working with a third man — and what if he was…
Truman Capote’s seminal In Cold Blood is the one of the bestselling true crime novels in history (second only to Vincent Bugliosi's 1974 book Helter Skelter). Published in 1966, the book recounts the shocking murders of four members of the Herbert Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959. After learning of the murders, Capote traveled…
Between the Netflix hit Making a Murderer and the FX limited series that everyone keeps talking about, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, it seems like a true crime sensation is sweeping the nation. What is it that makes true crime—whether it’s a television show, movie, or book—so much more intriguing than a…
Author Nelle Harper Lee (the Nelle being a tribute to her grandmother Ellen—Nelle being Ellen spelled backwards), writer of one of the most important books in American history, To Kill a Mockingbird, has passed away today at the young age of 89. While she only published two novels—the second of which, the recently published Go…
Capote in Kansas by Ande Parks and Chris Samnee is a graphic novel depicting a fictionalized version of author Truman Capote's travels through Middle America researching the murder of the Clutter family for his classic book (new hardcover re-release available July 24, 2013). Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood is widely recognized as a seminal work,…
