Books I Love - Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

From the back of the book:

From the bestselling author of The Lost City of Z comes a true-life murder story which became one of the FBI’s first major homicide investigations.

In the 1920’s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. But this was just the beginning, as more and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered.

As the death toll climbed, the FBI took up the case. But the bureau badly bungled the investigation. In desperation, the FBI’s young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. Together with the Osage, he and his undercover team began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.

I find it difficult to say that this is a “Book I Love” because it feels wrong to say that you love reading about the horrific things that occurred in real people’s lives. So, instead I will say that Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann is a book that I would recommend to anyone as an intriguing, complex and ultimately important story.

I re-read this book recently in anticipation of the release of the film and found that I was just as affected on my second reading as I had been when it was first released. Grann has drawn together a varied range of information and research, featuring a large cast in a way that is clear and filled with compassion for the Osage people who were subjected to such a horrific, sustained and widespread campaign of murder and manipulation.

Sharing the stories of Osage individuals who were subjected to guardianship and then the Reign of Terror, the agents who worked to solve the crimes, the perpetrators who were caught (and many who were suspected), as well as descendants of those involved, Grann paints a picture of a time of injustice and white entitlement that, in many cases, went un-investigated and unpunished.

This is a story that will make you angry at the injustice, devastated by the pain inflicted upon the Osage by evil individuals as well as the official systems supposedly set up to protect them. If you are anything like me, you will be left feeling shocked that something like this could have been perpetrated by so many ‘up-standing’ citizens but, as difficult as it may be to read, if we ignore these painful stories, if we are not aware of the past, we as a society run the risk making the same mistakes in the future.

You can find Killers of the Flower Moon here.