No Saints in Kansas

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. Agent: John Cusick, Folio Literary Management. (Nov.)