When George Plimpton in a 1966 interview with Truman Capote suggested that the temptation to fictionalise in a ‘nonfiction novel’ such as In Cold Blood must be overwhelming, he was thinking of the author’s account of how the accused murderer Dick Hickock, on the run with his accomplice Perry Smith, swerved in his car to hit a dog trotting along the road:

Q: Was there actually a dog at that exact point in the narrative or were you using … a fiction device?