No Saints in Kansas

August 15, 2017
A transplanted Kansas teen tries to make sense of a brutal murder in Brashear's debut. Sixteen-year-old Carly narrates the story of a murder that gripped the small Kansas town of Holcomb in 1959, when Herb and Bonnie Clutter, along with their teenage children, Nancy and Kenyon, were killed without obvious motive. Truman Capote would immortalize the subsequent manhunt and trial in his masterpiece In Cold Blood. Brashear chooses to tell the story from the perspective of a presumably fictional white girl who wanted to be--but wasn't quite--Nancy's friend. Ex-New Yorker Carly searches for evidence, going so far as to hold a seance at the scene of the crime; she's interrogated by police and, like everyone else in the town, interviewed by Capote. Kansan Brashear writes smoothly, but her novel is problematic on several fronts. Carly never emerges with a clear motive for her snooping, uncovering nothing of value, and her personal narrative arc seems slight. Worse, modern teens aren't likely to understand that this is a retelling of a nearly 60-year-old crime story. Without background, Capote and his female friend, Nelle Lee (later author of To Kill a Mockingbird), seem like odd distractions from the main narrative. There's no author's note to separate fact from fiction or to inform readers what happened after the trial, and without context the story doesn't really hold up on its own. Interesting but befuddled. (map) (Historical fiction. 13-17)

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October 9, 2017
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.

November 1, 2017

Gr 9 Up-The author spent much of her childhood near the scene of the infamous Clutter murders from Holcomb, KS, of 1959. Brashear's proposition: What if Truman Capote's In Cold Blood didn't tell the whole story? This fresh take offers a different approach, starring a fictional teen protagonist, Carly Fleming, who was friends with one of the victims. A determined yet naive Carly goes into amateur sleuth mode. Unfortunately, her investigations amount to nothing but trouble with law enforcement. Fans of the source material will not be moved by the suspense of Carly's adventures, although her persistence to uncover the truth is commendable. Capote himself shows up and is a highlight of the book. After police apprehend two suspects, Carly's struggles are exacerbated when her attorney father is appointed to defend the accused in court. The book emphasizes Carly's ostracism from friends and the community. It doesn't help that her family moved to the small Kansas town from New York City, and she is already considered an outsider with a father who is defending the accused in court. Her friends are inconsistently unsupportive while her mother turns to drinking. Rumors, bullying, and trouble with the law make coping with the loss of a friend more difficult. References to Perry Mason pop up, and while appropriate for the narrative and time period, are likely to be lost on today's teens. VERDICT This book will appeal to readers struggling with social issues, including bullying, ostracism, and mortality. A good introduction to Capote's famous novel and true crime.-Seth Herchenbach, McHenry City College, Crystal Lake, IL

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