I actually had to wait for my wife and baby daughter to be
quite literally on the other side of the planet (Brazil) before I could muster
the strength and courage to read this book. And to think that when I was young
I thought that Capote had just written Breakfast
at Tiffany’s and nothing else…
The opening chapter was, for me, by far the hardest to read –
not so much because of the brutality of the scenes (I was already quite
familiar with the story), but because I was almost physically sick by the point
Nancy’s friend found the first body and couldn’t stop thinking of Bobby Rupp (Nancy’s
boyfriend) and what he must have experienced.
The rest of the book didn’t have many surprises, but it did
end with the added (and for me really unexpected) drama of the stories of
Lowell Lee Andrews, George York and James Latham – and all the people they
killed before joining Perry and Dick on the death row – and that so nearly
tipped me over the edge.
