The title of In Cold Blood could be self-explanatory, but then English teachers wouldn't have jobs. So let's delve, shall we?
To do anything in cold blood is to do that thing mercilessly, without kindness or compassion. And when you do something in cold blood, you're generally doing something really mean. You don't hear about someone eating ice cream in cold blood, for example, or playing with a kitten in cold blood. Although it does raise some interesting images, it just doesn't happen.
So, what could the title In Cold Blood possibly be referring to, in a book that features four murders? Hmm. Yeah, let's think hard about that one.
But maybe, just maybe, the title is referring to more than the murder of the Clutter family by Dick and Perry. They did, after all, murder the Clutters for no real reason, which is the ultimate definition of murdering someone in cold blood.
But other murders took place. No, you keep paging through the book, looking. We'll wait right here.
Well, for starters, Dick and Perry are killed at the end. Some people think that execution is murder; in fact we hear that opinion from some of the townsfolk who attend the trial.
And how about the murder of a society's innocence and trust? (Contractually, we're bound to talk about that kind of thing.) After all, an entire community's peace was destroyed because of two psychopaths and their warped plan.