No Saints in Kansas
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $8.99
-
- $8.99
Publisher Description
A young adult, fictional reimagining of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and the brutal murders that inspired it. Gripping and fast-paced, this meticulously researched historical fiction will reinvigorate a new generation to Capote.
November is usually quiet in Holcomb, Kansas, but in 1959, the town is shattered by the quadruple murder of the Clutter family. Suspicion falls on Nancy Clutter’s boyfriend, Bobby Rupp, the last one to see them alive.
New Yorker Carly Fleming, new to the small Midwestern town, is an outsider. She tutored Nancy, and (in private, at least) they were close. Carly and Bobby were the only ones who saw that Nancy was always performing, and that she was cracking under the pressure of being Holcomb’s golden girl. This secret connected Carly and Bobby. Now that Bobby is an outsider, too, they’re bound closer than ever.
Determined to clear Bobby’s name, Carly dives into the murder investigation and ends up in trouble with the local authorities. But that’s nothing compared to the wrath she faces from Holcomb once the real perpetrators are caught. When her father is appointed to defend the killers of the Clutter family, the entire town labels the Flemings as traitors. Now Carly must fight for what she knows is right.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this odd take on Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, a fictional friend to victim Nancy Clutter launches her own investigation to solve the Clutter family murder. Narrator Carly Fleming's difficult relationship with Nancy, whom she secretly tutored but never quite befriended, and her status as a New York City transplant to insular Holcomb, Kans., make her an outsider from the start. Eventually, her prying also turns her into a suspect. Carly's murky emotional connection to the Clutters makes her a puzzling choice to focus on, as well as an unreliable narrator who is trying awfully hard to get Nancy to like her. Debut author Brashear assembles all the right elements for a gripping murder mystery, but the treatment of the brutal true crime through such a hazy fictional lens borders on crass, even taking into account criticisms of the truthfulness of Capote's account in In Cold Blood. Drawing in real-life characters, including Capote and a pre-presidential John F. Kennedy as a convenient friend of the Flemings, further muddies the waters between fact and fiction. Ages 14 up.
