I will be honest by admitting that I didn’t finish this book; I only got about a third end, before I just skimmed a few pages and walked away in disgust.

Why? Well, I came expecting to get a discussion about the issue of race in America, the many ways racism manifests itself, and how even good people unintentionally wind up playing into it. Instead, I received a court procedural more concerned about the strategies and thoughts of the white people involved in the story, rather than the black people directly experiencing the suffering and trauma.

When Martin Scorese set out to direct the film adaptation of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” he initially told the story from the white investigators sent to unravel the massive plot. However, he quickly realized that this story needed to be told from the perspective of its victims—the Osage Indians targeted by racist, greedy whites—who directly experienced the suffering, not another tale about brave white outsiders coming to the rescue of innocent people of color.

I wish this book had done the same.

Not a fun history to read, but necessary to truly understand the United States. So many people forget that the 1920s saw the resurgence of the KKK, and this book tells of one set of consequences of the virulent racism that the country chose to ignore or even celebrate.