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Brashear, Amy

WORK TITLE: No Saints in Kansas
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.amybrashear.com/
CITY:
STATE: AR
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American

http://www.amybrashear.com/contact/

RESEARCHER NOTES:

LC control no.: n 2017046790
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2017046790
HEADING: Brashear, Amy
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100 1_ |a Brashear, Amy
670 __ |a No saints in Kansas, 2017: |b ECIP title page (Amy Brashear)

PERSONAL

Female.

ADDRESS

  • Home - AZ.

CAREER

Writer.

WRITINGS

  • No Saints in Kansas, Soho Teen (New York, NY), 2017
  • The Incredible True Story of the Making of Eve of Destruction, Soho Teen (New York, NY), 2018

SIDELIGHTS

Amy Brashear’s novel No Saints in Kansas is based on the same events that inspired Truman Capote’s famous book In Cold Blood, the story of the murders of Herb Clutter, a Kansas farmer; his wife; and their two teenage children committed by a pair of ex-convicts, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, in 1959. “I read In Cold Blood in the sixth grade. It made a huge impact on my life,” Brashear told Erin Z. Bass in an interview appearing in Deep South. “There is something about that book that has stayed with me. I’ve continued to seek out everything to do with the case.”

Brashear introduces a new, fictional character into the historical events of the story. “I wanted to tell the story from the point of view of someone who had to live after the fact in the town. And telling it from Carly, a fictional friend of Nancy Clutter, was the way I wanted to do it,” Brashear told Bass. “I wanted to tell a point of view that we haven’t seen in this story. In In Cold Blood we had the point of view of Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, but not someone who had to live in that town right after the murders. Someone who was frightened. Who didn’t know if they could trust their neighbors.”

No Saints in Kansas is told through the eyes of Carly Fleming, a recent arrival in the Kansas community of Holcomb, where the Clutter family lived (and close to the town where Brashear herself grew up). “The focus of Brashear’s novel,” explained Hilary Crew in Voice of Youth Advocates, “is Carly’s relationships with her peers, her romance with Landry, and the effects of the Clutters’ murders on her family.” Carly’s “difficult relationship with Nancy,” said a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “… make[s] her an outsider from the start.” She is fascinated by the murders. “Ex-New Yorker Carly,” wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor, “searches for evidence, going so far as to hold a seance at the scene of the crime.” “She enters the blood-splattered Clutter farmhouse despite the fact the house is off limits,” stated D.R. Meredith in the New York Journal of Books. “She takes a lie detector test. Her actions have made her a target of suspicion not only of Agent Dewey, but by the ‘popular girls’ at Holcomb High school. … She sneaks into county law enforcement offices after hours to read files. She finds mention of two suspicious strangers, and brazenly interviews the mother of one of them: Richard Hickock. When Richard Hickock and his cohort, Perry Smith, are arrested for the murder of the Clutter family, Carly expects that Bobby and she are exonerated.” Carly “drives the story,” explained Diane Scott Lewis online at Historical Novel Society, “proving that girls in this more repressive decade are as capable of detective work as boys.”

BIOCRIT

PERIODICALS

  • Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2017, review of No Saints in Kansas.

  • Library Journal, June 15, 2017, review of No Saints in Kansas, p. 6.

  • Publishers Weekly, October 9, 2017, review of No Saints in Kansas, p. 70.

  • Voice of Youth Advocates, October, 2017, Hilary Crew, review of No Saints in Kansas, p. 54.

ONLINE

  • Amy Brashear Website, http://www.amybrashear.com (May 16, 2018), author profile.

  • Deep South, http://deepsouthmag.com/ (November 14, 2017), Erin Z. Bass, “‘No Saints in Kansas’: Interview with Amy Brashear.”

  • Historical Novel Society, https://historicalnovelsociety.org/ (November, 2017), Diane Scott Lewis, review of No Saints in Kansas.

  • New York Journal of Books, https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/ (November 13, 2017), D.R. Meredith, review of No Saints in Kansas.

  • No Saints in Kansas Soho Teen (New York, NY), 2017
  • The Incredible True Story of the Making of Eve of Destruction Soho Teen (New York, NY), 2018
1. No saints in Kansas LCCN 2017021387 Type of material Book Personal name Brashear, Amy, author. Main title No saints in Kansas / Amy Brashear. Published/Produced New York, NY : Soho Teen, [2017] Description 304 pages ; 22 cm ISBN 9781616956837 (hardcover) CALL NUMBER PZ7.1.B75154 No 2017 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms
  • Amy Brashear - http://www.amybrashear.com/about/

    Amy Brashear has deep ties to the state of Arkansas. She grew up with family near Damascus: home of the infamous 1980 “Damascus Incident,” where an accidental explosion in a Titan II silo almost triggered a nuclear war. Inspired by this real event, The Incredible True Story of the Making of the Eve of Destruction is her second novel. Her first novel, No Saints in Kansas, was published last year to critical acclaim.

  • Deep South - http://deepsouthmag.com/2017/11/14/no-saints-in-kansas-interview-with-amy-brashear/

    ‘No Saints in Kansas’: Interview With Amy Brashear
    November 14, 2017Erin Z. Bass 2 Comments10
    In her new young adult novel, Amy Brashear retells Truman Capote’s classic In Cold Blood from the perspective of a teenage girl.

    Scroll down for a Rafflecopter giveaway of No Saints in Kansas!

    A native of Arkansas, Amy Brashear moved to Garden City, Kansas, at the age of nine. Garden City is located just six minutes from Holcomb, where the gruesome murder of the Clutter family took place in 1959. Truman Capote‘s nonfiction novel In Cold Blood made this true crime eternally famous, and movies and TV productions continue to cover the case today. More than 5o years later, Brashear has a different take.

    Experiencing the story as a young girl and living in a place where the murders put a cloud over everything gave her a unique perspective. She says she wanted to tell a coming of age story in No Saints in Kansas (out November 14) about what it was like to live in Holcomb after the murders. Her protagonist is 15-year-old Carly Fleming, originally from New York City and an outsider in Kansas. She tutored Nancy Clutter and is determined to clear Nancy’s boyfriend Bobby’s name. Searching for clues at any cost, Carly ends up in trouble with the sheriff—and a suspect herself. When her father is appointed to defend the killers of the Clutter family, the entire town labels the Flemings as traitors.

    “I wanted to tell a point of view that we haven’t seen in this story,” says Brashear. “In In Cold Blood, we had the point of view of Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, but not someone who had to live in that town right after the murders. Someone who was frightened … I wanted to give a voice to a child.”

    While Brashear’s narrator and her point of view are new, the story of the Clutter murders is not. Fans of In Cold Blood—Brashear became one in the sixth grade—will enjoy reading this reinvention of the story and rooting for Carly. Brashear says she did tons of research and felt a responsibility to get things right. In our interview below, we talk to her about what it was like to live under the shadow of In Cold Blood, how her book came to be and what she’s working on next.

    EZB: You moved to Garden City at the age of 9. Did you have any idea about the murders, and how did you first hear about them?

    AB: When I moved to Garden City, Kansas, a childhood friend told me about the murders. My mom remembers that was the first introduction we had to Garden City. We were at a VBS (Vacation Bible School) church event and a woman told us about the murder of four members of a family that lived in Holcomb, a small town six miles west of Garden. It wasn’t until I was in the sixth grade when I read In Cold Blood did I understand the significance. That book had a huge impact on me. Everything that Truman Capote wrote about, what I remember seeing “Out There.”

    EZB: What was the atmosphere of the area like in 1991? Despite the amount of time that had passed, did the murders still haunt Holcomb and Garden City?

    AB: I remember it being like a cloud. The older people remember and ever so often would mention something about the Clutter family, but they wouldn’t come right out and talk about the murders. Just little details they would mention. I remember a funeral at the Valley View cemetery, a person mentioned that the family was buried a little way from where we were at. Just little things like that. The murders have had a huge impact on Finney County. The citizens have tried to keep their memory alive. A community park in Holcomb was dedicated to the Clutter family.

    EZB: When did you first read Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood? You say you had a “consuming interest” after that. How did that interest eventually become this novel?

    AB: I read In Cold Blood in the sixth grade. It made a huge impact on my life. There is something about that book that has stayed with me. I’ve continued to seek out everything to do with the case. I’ve watched all the movies multiple times. “In Cold Blood” staring Robert Blake and the television movie CBS made staring Sam Neill, Anthony Edwards and Eric Roberts. And of course “Infamous” and “Capote.” The story about a horrible senseless murder has made an impact not just in Southwest Kansas but on our society as well. If it happened in a small town like Holcomb, it could happen anywhere.

    I’ve always been interested in true crime. I partially blame it on my mom. We have always watched crime shows and mysteries. There’s some crimes in this world that stay with you. For me, I honestly believe if I didn’t live in southwest Kansas I don’t think I would have connected with it as much. People are fascinated and search out for more information about different crimes. True crime podcasts are a huge hit for people to listen to. The armchair detective has taken off. The Clutter murders are one of those cases. Why that family? On a Saturday night, making plans to go to church and planning the upcoming week, but instead they were gunned down and were buried by Wednesday. Some things will never make sense. Even if you continue to ask the why questions. Life is cut short no matter the age.

    EZB: Why did you decide to reimagine this story from a YA perspective?

    AB: I’ve always loved the coming of age story. I wanted to tell the story from the point of view of someone who had to live after the fact in the town. And telling it from Carly, a fictional friend of Nancy Clutter, was the way I wanted to do it. I wanted to tell a point of view that we haven’t seen in this story. In In Cold Blood we had the point of view of Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, but not someone who had to live in that town right after the murders. Someone who was frightened. Who didn’t know if they could trust their neighbors. Someone who had to lock their doors because they didn’t know if it was truly over. I wanted to give a voice to a child. Because when something happens it just doesn’t affect the adults. It has a huge impact on a child.

    EZB: Capote famously claimed that every single word of In Cold Blood was true. What was your research process like and did you feel a responsibility to get the facts right when it came to the murders and real-life people in your novel?

    AB: It took me a long time to write No Saints in Kansas. I did tons of research. I tried to stay away from In Cold Blood and instead stuck to newspaper articles, magazine spreads and scholarly articles. Truman Capote and the Legacy of “In Cold Blood” by Ralph F. Voss was another source material that I consulted. I looked at crime scene photos and reports that the Garden City Police Department had on their website. I felt a huge responsibility to get it right. I read everything I could about the family. The Lawrence Journal World in Lawrence, Kansas, had a series of articles on the Clutter murders back in 2005. I wanted to be respectable and at the same time give a voice to the victims. It was their story. It happened to them. It was a small town murder.

    EZB: Although the murders happened and In Cold Blood was published more than 50 years ago, the story remains as compelling as it ever was and continues to pop up in the news. Why do you think that is, especially as Sundance TV’s two-night series “Cold Blooded” is set to premiere later this month?

    AB: I am looking forward to watching the “Cold Blooded: The Clutter Family Murders” documentary airing on Sundance TV on Sunday, November 18. I have high expectations, but it was made by the man who did the documentary about the West Memphis 3, which is another true crime that has stayed with people and which they continue to seek out information. I think the Clutter family murders has made a huge impact because it was a horrific act, a senseless act that happened that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. All because of a lie. Forty dollars, a pair of binoculars and a radio, and Herb Clutter, Bonnie Clutter, Nancy Clutter and Kenyon Clutter, four members of a family lost their lives. Two adults and two children didn’t get to fulfill their dreams.

    EZB: Is there anything else you want readers to know about No Saints In Kansas?

    AB: I would like to say to the readers I tried to remain faithful and respectful to the family. I really hope they see that and it comes across so.

    EZB: What are you working on next? Do you plan to stick with the YA genre?

    AB: My second YA book The Incredible True Story of the Making of Eve of Destruction is projected to come out with Soho Teen next year. It takes place in 1984 and is loosely based on the Damascus accident that occurred in 1980 in Damascus, Arkansas. The story follows the lives of several teens in Reagan-era Arkansas, when a film crew invades their small town to film a movie about a nuclear disaster.

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Print Marked Items
Brashear, Amy. No Saints in Kansas
Hilary Crew
Voice of Youth Advocates.
40.4 (Oct. 2017): p54.
COPYRIGHT 2017 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC
http://www.voya.com
Full Text:
3Q * 4P * J * S
Brashear, Amy. No Saints in Kansas. Soho Teen, November 2017. 320p. $18.99. 978-161695-683-7.
In 1959, two teenagers, Kenyon and Nancy Clutter, and their parents were brutally murdered in their
Holcomb, Kansas, farmhouse. Brashear re-imagines the circumstances surrounding the murder, made
famous by Truman Capote's award-winning nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood (1966). The story is told from
the perspective of fifteen-year-old Carly Fleming, who watches the police drag and burn blood-soaked
mattresses from the Clutter farmhouse. Carly, who had hoped to win Nancy's friendship through tutoring
her in math, is determined to clear Bobby, Nancy's boyfriend, who is a suspect. With the help of friends
Mary Claire and Landry, she embarks on an investigation of her own that frequently lands her in trouble.
Full of bravado, Carly continuously confronts agents of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation with her ideas
and is taken into custody when she threatens the Clutters' neighbor of with a shotgun. When her father, a
defense attorney, is directed to defend Perry Smith, one of the perpetrators of the crime, Carly learns what it
means to be ostracized.
The focus of Brashear's novel is Carly's relationships with her peers, her romance with Landry, and the
effects of the Clutters' murders on her family. The author includes a newspaper article and an arrest warrant
containing facts about the actual crime and mentions the visiting journalist, Capote, who is writing his own
version of events. Additional notes about the murder would have been useful in making clear the distinction
between fact and fiction while clarification about Capote's appearance in the small Kansas town and
subsequent account of the murder might have inspired teens to read In Cold Blood.--Hilary Crew.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Crew, Hilary. "Brashear, Amy. No Saints in Kansas." Voice of Youth Advocates, Oct. 2017, p. 54. General
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A511785004/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=7af94a27. Accessed 25 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A511785004
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No Saints in Kansas
Publishers Weekly.
264.41 (Oct. 9, 2017): p70.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
No Saints in Kansas
Amy Brashear. Soho Teen, $18.99 (320p)
ISBN 978-1-61695-683-7
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.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"No Saints in Kansas." Publishers Weekly, 9 Oct. 2017, p. 70. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A511293408/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=31498500.
Accessed 25 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A511293408
4/25/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1524708970205 3/4
Brashear, Amy: NO SAINTS IN KANSAS
Kirkus Reviews.
(Aug. 15, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Brashear, Amy NO SAINTS IN KANSAS Soho Teen (Children's Fiction) $18.99 11, 14 ISBN: 978-1-
61695-683-7
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)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Brashear, Amy: NO SAINTS IN KANSAS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Aug. 2017. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A500364875/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=e97ee3c9.
Accessed 25 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A500364875
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No Saints in Kansas
Library Journal.
142.11 (June 15, 2017): p6a.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No
redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
In this extraordinary debut novel, Amy Brashear turns Truman Capote's classic In Cold Blood on its head,
telling the story from the point of view of Nancy Clutter's friend and classmate, the fictional Carly Fleming.
Published to coincide with the anniversary of the Clutter murders.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
978-1-61695-683-7 | $18.99/$21.99C | 50,000
Soho Teen | HC | November
*978-1-61695-684-4
YOUNG ADULT FICTION / DEBUT
RA: For fans of In Cold Blood RI: Author lives in Fayetteville. AR
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"No Saints in Kansas." Library Journal, 15 June 2017, p. 6a. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495668173/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=6d06bbe9.
Accessed 25 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495668173

Crew, Hilary. "Brashear, Amy. No Saints in Kansas." Voice of Youth Advocates, Oct. 2017, p. 54. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A511785004/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 25 Apr. 2018. "No Saints in Kansas." Publishers Weekly, 9 Oct. 2017, p. 70. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A511293408/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 25 Apr. 2018. "Brashear, Amy: NO SAINTS IN KANSAS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Aug. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A500364875/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 25 Apr. 2018. "No Saints in Kansas." Library Journal, 15 June 2017, p. 6a. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495668173/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 25 Apr. 2018.
  • New York Journal of Books
    https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/no-saints-kansas

    Word count: 1120

    No Saints in Kansas
    Image of No Saints in Kansas
    Author(s):
    Amy Brashear
    Release Date:
    November 13, 2017
    Publisher/Imprint:
    Soho Teen
    Pages:
    320
    Buy on Amazon

    Reviewed by:
    D. R. Meredith
    "Highly recommended."

    Although designated a YA novel, this re-creation of the circumstances of the Clutter Family murders is more than a rehash of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood from a teen perspective. It is a meticulous dissection of small town life in the aftermath of an unexpected and unspeakable tragedy.

    Holcomb, Kansas, is a tiny, sleepy town in 1959. A farming community in the western part of Kansas, nothing much happens in Holcomb.

    This stereotypical peaceful small town, where everyone knows everyone else, is ripped apart just before Thanksgiving by the brutal murder of the Clutter family—Herb, Bonnie, and their children, Nancy and Kenyon. As Carly Fleming’s best friend, Mary Claire says “Things like this don’t happen here.”

    That things “like this” can happen in a town like Holcomb, Kansas, is inexplicable to its residents. Unlike what one might expect, Holcomb’s citizens don’t blame some stranger, some vagrant, who happens on River Valley Farm and decides to murder the Clutters.

    Instead, Holcomb begins to feed upon its own. At the funeral . . . ”whispering, spreading rumors how they died and questioning everyone who ever knew them who could be suspects.”

    One of the town’s own, Nancy Clutter’s boyfriend, Bobby Rupp, is suspected of the crime. “People in town have been giving him that look. A knowing look. A look of I know what you did.”

    Outsider Carly Fleming, a recent transplant from New York City, is convinced that Bobby is innocent. She can’t understand why even her boyfriend, Seth, who is supposedly Bobby’s best friend, seems willing to fall in with the town’s unspoken opinion that Bobby is guilty.

    Carly’s status as an outsider allows her to identify with Bobby’s sudden fall from grace. Now that Bobby is being slowly ejected from the protective environment of Holcomb, he becomes an outsider, too. Although she visits the Clutter home several times a week, she is not Nancy’s best friend, just her secret math tutor.

    Bobby Rupp is taken into custody, his school locker searched, as well as his home. Nothing suspicious is found—as Carly knows there won’t be. Carly, too, is called into to answer questions by Agent Dewey of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

    A note in Nancy’s handwriting mentioning Carly’s name has been found. It is a reminder for Nancy to remember to take her red velvet dress to church for Carly. Instead of Carly’s wearing the dress to the Sadie Hawkins’ Day Dance, Nancy is buried in it.

    Now that she is drawn into the investigation Carly on a mission now: to prove Bobby innocent of the Clutter murders. But Carly’s mission is more than proving his innocence; it is restoring his place in the community and carving out a place of her own.

    Carly finds herself under scrutiny by the police chief time after time. She enters the blood-splattered Clutter farmhouse despite the fact the house is off limits. She takes a lie detector test. Her actions have made her a target of suspicion not only of Agent Dewey, but by the “popular girls” at Holcomb High school.

    Carly is obsessed by the case, by the Clutters, and particularly by Nancy. She sneaks into county law enforcement offices after hours to read files. She finds mention of two suspicious strangers, and brazenly interviews the mother of one of them: Richard Hickock.

    When Richard Hickock and his cohort, Perry Smith, are arrested for the murder of the Clutter family, Carly expects that Bobby and she are exonerated.

    Her expectations are not met. “Not everyone in town thinks we got the right men. Some think that there might be others involved . . . It has to be someone local,” says mean girl Karen. The town still is mired in suspicion, still distrusting their neighbors.

    Then the town has something else—or someone else—on whom to focus their unresolved anxiety when Carly’s worst nightmare occurs. The Fleming family left New York City because Carly’s father was the court-appointed defense attorney for a murderer who was acquitted. The resulting negative publicity drove the family to Holcomb.

    It is happening all over again: Carly’s father is appointed defense attorney for Perry Smith. Now to Carly’s peers she is a traitor. Her father is defending a vicious murderer; he will try to win an acquittal for a guilty man, let a killer go free.

    “Maybe all those people back in New York City were right to hate Dad. How could he do this to me—to us—again? . . . All I can think about is my father standing beside Perry Smith. He’s a traitor. He betrayed our family by saying yes.”

    Arnold Fleming tells his family that he has no choice; the judge “is forcing him to defend Perry Edward Smith.” Carly doesn’t believe it. “Forcing him? I don’t buy it. Everybody has a choice.”

    Truman Capote, an odd little figure to the folks in Holcomb, dressed in outlandish clothes, and accompanied by his friend, Harper Lee, is interviewing everyone who knew the Clutters; rather, it is Harper Lee who is doing most of the interviewing.

    Holcomb doesn’t quite know what to think of Capote, but Carly does. He’s made up his mind about Holcomb, about the murders, and it doesn’t matter what the people who actually knew the Clutters said about them. The Clutters and all Holcomb are now set in concrete.

    Another icon of the sixties who doesn’t really figure into the story except to emphasize how out of place Carly’s mother is, and by extension, the whole Fleming family, is John F. Kennedy, an old friend of Carly’s mom.

    No Saints in Kansas by Amy Brashear, although fictional, paints a picture of a town at odds with itself. As one who grew up just a few miles from Holcomb, Ms. Brashear brings a perspective of small town life missing from In Cold Blood. Highly recommended.

    D. R. Meredith is the author of fifteen mystery novels, two historical sagas, a TV novelization, several short stories, and innumerable book reviews.

  • Historical Novel Society
    https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/no-saints-in-kansas/

    Word count: 328

    No Saints in Kansas
    BY AMY BRASHEAR

    Find & buy on
    In 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, brutal murders are discovered in a farmhouse by two teenagers. The respected Clutter family, husband, wife and two teenage children, have been shot to death. The town and surrounding area are devastated, afraid, and everyone suspects everyone else. A newcomer to Kansas, Carly, was well-acquainted with Nancy Clutter. They attended the same high school and Carly was tutoring Nancy in math. When Nancy’s boyfriend, Bobby—the last person to see the Clutters alive—is suspected of the crime, Carly is determined to prove his innocence.

    This novel reconstructs the true murders of the Clutter family—detailed in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, published in 1965—from a teenager’s perspective. Capote himself makes a brief appearance in the narrative. Carly’s father is a defense attorney, giving her access to the courthouse and the FBI agent called in to investigate. Why she is so set on helping prove Bobby innocent isn’t clear, they hardly speak to one another, and he’s a shadow in the background for most of the story. The slightly negative connotation of Nancy’s character seems unnecessary.

    Carly is bold and reckless, to the point of putting herself in danger several times, but worth rooting for. She drives the story, proving that girls in this more repressive decade are as capable of detective work as boys. Recommended for teens.

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    Details
    PUBLISHER
    Soho Teen

    PUBLISHED
    2017

    GENRE
    Children/Young Adult, Mystery/Crime

    CENTURY
    20th Century

    PRICE
    (US) $18.99
    (CA) $21.99

    ISBN
    (US) 9781616956837

    FORMAT
    Hardback

    PAGES
    320

    Review
    APPEARED IN
    HNR Issue 82 (November 2017)

    REVIEWED BY
    Diane Scott Lewis