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In Cold Blood

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In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood-Alvin Dewey In the book, “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote he describes to us all the events that took place before, during, and after a murder that happened in Holcomb, Kansas. Mr. Clutter, who was the owner of River Valley Farm and husband to Bonnie Clutter, and the father of four children, two whom had survived due to them not living at the Clutter residence anymore. The fatal event of the family hit the whole town hard which led one man, detective Alvin Dewey, determined to find and take whoever did such actions to trial to be sentenced. Alvin Dewey put some, if not all, of his time into finding the murderers to the Clutter case. When taking on a job as being a detective you are required to work a lot of irregular hours that can start anytime of the day or night. The main sacrifice as being a detective is the time away from your family like Detective Dewey had to do. When Alvin was not at work being a detective he was a husband to his wife Marie and a father to their two sons. Taking on the Clutter case as Dewey did, made him mentality and physically away from his loved ones. As stated in the book, when Dewey phoned home one night to tell his wife he would not be home for dinner she replied with a “Yes. All right, Alvin”, but he noticed in her tone that something was wrong (Capote 87). This shows how much of an impact this case took on Dewey and his family even if they are not even involved in the situation. Many of the people in the small town of Holcomb wanted to have closure on who murdered the Clutters but did not take any actions to do so like Alvin Dewey. Although it was his job to be the one to find the murder or murder he did not have to take it to heart like he did, which led to his success in finding the two. Dewey becomes very involved with the case that even one of his close friends asked him if he knows what is happening to him. Dewey states, “That’s all I think about. And there’s the chance that just while talking the thing


Cited: Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1993. Print.
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