In Cold Blood: True Crime, an American Genre

Pulitzer Prize-winner James B. Stewart looks at the case of serial killer Dr. Michael Swango and the medical community that enabled his crimes.

Inspired by the famous Leopold & Loeb case, Levin’s novel was the stylistic inspiration for In Cold Blood and one of the first classics of the true crime genre.

A novelistic account of the efforts of Charles Norris and Alexander Gettler to use chemistry and medical science in investigating crime in 1920s New York.

Kevin Cook re-examines one of the most infamous murders in New York history, depicting how it resonated against the backdrop of change in the 1960s, and how the dark picture of human nature it seemed to illuminate needs re-evaluation.

Edited by Harold Schechter, our project scholar, this volume offers the first comprehensive overview of American writing on crime. True Crime ranges from Cotton Mather to James Ellroy.

By most accounts, this is Capote’s masterwork, and a foundational text in the history of American journalism. Initially published as a series of pieces in The New Yorker, this book delivers a nuanced tale of class, desperation, and crime. By turns ghastly and sensitive, In Cold Blood is a classic of the genre.