It's 1959 and Truman Capote is looking for a challenging project. A story about an unsolved crime in Kansas sends him and assistant Harper Lee (author of To Kill a Mockingbird
) on a transforming journey. This graphic novel gives a fictionalized account of Capote's time in Kansas researching the Clutter family murders for his groundbreaking In Cold Blood
. Once at the crime scene, the flamboyant Capote must learn to fit in with the locals and find a way to get inside the crime. Writer Parks's last book, Union Station
, was another true crime tale, and he has done his research for this, but he also introduces several unreal elements, including the ghost of 16-year-old murder victim Nancy Clutter, who becomes a confidante for Capote as the tale goes on. The book attempts to deal with the writer's ambivalence over his involvement in the aftermath of the crime, but the sometimes flat script isn't done any favors by the art, which has a good sense of place but a poor grasp of likenesses, making the characters often difficult to identify. Capote was a complicated, colorful figure, but this book only scratches the surface of the demons that drove him. (Aug.)
