A Killing Cold

Kate Alice Marshall’s A Killing Cold illustrates how extreme wealth functions as a form of social and legal immunity, enabling the Dalton family to manipulate narratives and escape consequences for serious crimes. The novel demonstrates this through Trevor’s hit-and-run accident, for which “Granddad paid Kayla to keep quiet” about the crash that could have killed her (146), prioritizing a multi-billion-dollar business deal over justice. This reflects real-world patterns documented by sociologists like Matthew Desmond, whose 2023 book Poverty, by America shows how wealthy Americans consistently receive more lenient treatment in criminal justice systems compared to working-class defendants facing identical charges.

The text exposes class hierarchies through stark contrasts between Theo’s working-class vulnerability and the Daltons’ elite protection. Theo shops at thrift stores and works at a bookstore, while the Daltons own “a whole mountain” and casually spend hundreds on scarves (15). When Connor’s family investigates Theo’s background, they frame it as necessary for the protection of their reputation, reflecting their concern with what sociologist Pierre Bourdieu termed “cultural capital”—the idea that reputation and social connections form a kind of currency.

Marshall draws on contemporary examples of wealth shielding those who have it from consequences, echoing cases like the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal, where affluent parents including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin used money to circumvent merit-based systems.