And Every Word Is True: Newfound documents reveal Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood’ is not the end of the story- and why Kansas waged a legal battle to suppress their publication

This turned out to be an interesting read, taking me back to the original story first and then filling in even more information with new twists on the case. Something I learned is that the famed author Harper Lee was also very involved in the day to day interviewing and writing up notes to be used for the 'In Cold Blood' book too. A lot of people felt that Capote should have given her more credit in the book other than as a lowly researchist and protege. When her book (To Kill a Mockingbird) was published in July 1960, she was established as a leading literary figure. One of the three original investigators on the case, Harold Nye, kept a personal set of investigative files on the Clutter case as he did on all of his cases, in the event he ever had to testify for trial. After his passing, his son Ronald Nye was looking to sell some of his father’s personal papers and books on the Clutter case to raise some money to help with medical bills. When the KBI stepped in with an injunction to halt the auction, it made him immediately curious about what was in there that is so important all of a sudden to cause this kind of a reaction. What did they not want to get out? 

For one thing, it turned out that Capote’s work wasn’t as completely true as he made it out to be. And it seemed there might be a reason they wanted the files kept private, after all.  There was also a book being written from the papers of one of the killers too, as it turned out it seemed. How would that compare to what had been written so far too? Ron wasn’t giving up his father’s papers without a battle. This is very good historical true crime and I enjoyed it very much. My thanks for the advance electronic copy that was provided by NetGalley, author Gary McAvoy, and the publisher for my fair review.

In our current lamentable era of "fake news," it is refreshing to have a scrupulously researched and documented -- and eminently readable -- expose of the facts of a case that under any normal circumstances would long ago have been ruled a cold one if not for the story-within-a-story of Truman Capote's famous investigation. Although we still cannot assure ourselves conclusively of the motive or of the identities of all of those responsible for the now-infamous Clutter murders, Gary McAvoy has presented us with an impressive range of new details that argue for a fresh interpretation. His contributions are now undeniably part of the record of these crimes and the ensuing investigation, as the details he reveals here have never before come to light. And as he describes, the state of Kansas put up quite a fight to keep this new evidence in the dark and thereby preserve the version of events commonly accepted as the truth even though author Truman Capote admitted to having 'fictionalized' his account. Though Capote commented about his work that "every word is true," McAvoy's new evidence, taken from primary sources such as KBI investigation director Harold R. Nye's own contemporaneous notebooks, compellingly proves that in Capote's case, truth was only in the eye of the beholder. The "In Cold Blood" oeuvre henceforth will be incomplete without McAvoy's revelatory book and the evidence and theories it supports.

True story of the author's battles with the the state of Kansas who attempt to suppress the evidence he acquires from the son of the lead investigator to the Clutter murders back in 1959-60. Detailed analysis of all of the players and how the new evidence blows wide open the assumptions we've all held for almost 60 years that the murder was motivated by the killers search for $$ in some unknown safe. I now see how this is very unlikely. It reads like a crime drama with some amazing nods to the prose we'd expect from Truman himself. If you're a fan of Capote's work, of In Cold Blood in particular, or of the true crime genre in general, no doubt you will appreciate And Every Word Is True. Although the actual crime is now 2 generations in the past, I know it's still alive in our cultural mindset. It will be interesting to see how McAvoy's fresh revelations shake things up. Loads of photos too - which add great detail and authenticity to the reading.

As shocking as the original crime itself, Gary McAvoy’s And Every Word is True is a remarkable read for anyone who is familiar with the infamous Clutter Family murder case that Truman Capote unraveled in his supposedly “truthful” account in his nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood. Readers of McAvoy’s book will discover new evidence that proves that Capote not only embellished many parts of his “masterpiece,” but he also omitted, either by design or lack of knowledge, substantial facts that will change readers’ views of the crime completely.  As a high school teacher who has taught In Cold Blood for over forty years, I highly recommend using McAvoy’s book as a follow-up reading to Capote’s work to provide students with a more complete picture of the crime and to provide them with insights into the story that Capote failed to deliver.

I was hoping for a study that would shed more light on the investigation of the Clutter murders and the writing of In Cold Blood.  Although this book points out some important inconsistencies in Capote’s work, however, the authors are far from objective in their assessment of the investigation.  Their thesis is muddled. (Who exactly hired Hickock and Smith?  Why involve Floyd Wells?  If you’re planning a murder for hire, don’t you want more competent criminals than these turned out to be?). I had to laugh at the mention of the “lurid magazines” in the crime scene photo.  The ones in the photo reproduced here are clearly nothing more than the romance comics popular at the time among young people of Nancy and Kenyon’s age.  They’re only lurid if your name is Frederic Wertham.