Columbine

On 20th April 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold made their bid to leave 'a lasting impression on the world'. They drove to school, planted two huge bombs in the dining area, then positioned themselves outside the main entrance to pick off the fleeing teachers and students. The bombs failed, but the ensuing massacre defined a new brand of school violence - one that has started to cross the Atlantic. In the tradition of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and almost ten years in the making, Columbine is the definitive account of those terrible events. Cullen lays bare the callous brutality of mastermind Eric Harris, and the timid, suicidal Dylan Klebold, who had been to the prom just three days earlier and wrote obsessively about love in his journal. A close-up study of violence, grief and an all-consuming media frenzy, Columbine is above all a compelling, tragic and utterly human portrait of two young killers.