Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

This non-fiction book tells the story of the Osage murders and the birth of the FBI.

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

Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. Her older sister was shot. Her mother was then slowly poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances.

As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations. But the bureau was then notoriously corrupt and initially bungled the case. Eventually the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to solve the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most sinister conspiracies in American history.

My Verdict: I listened to the audio of this book and I struggled with the beginning. It was informative but disjointed and I think I would have done better with the physical book. I found myself easily distracted. The middle of the book was more argumentative and I found myself more tuned in. The end of the book was slow for me. The book offered much needed cultural and historical context and that was appreciated by this reader in a world that seems to be afraid of that very thing. It retelling of the murders was suspenseful and awful (in the sense that it never should have happened). This was more than a recounting of true crime events, though. In the end, the focus is on a racist legal system, tying up most of the loose ends and making an argument about the FBI along the way. While this book was interesting and I believe it is an important read, I struggled to get through it. For that reason, I give this book 3.5 stars.