In “Killers of the Flower Moon,” David Grann has penned an intriguing account of the mistreatment of Native Americans that will impact your sense of fairness with a thunderous roar.

The Osage Indian Nation in the early 1920s should have been glorious and well provided for by the influx of money from oil found on their property. It became the richest nation per capita in the world but murders and betrayal reduced it to an unbearable existence of fear and depression. The callousness of the forces that intruded on the lives of the Osage is hard to understand and to accept. The author, a widely recognized producer of well-written narrative non-fiction, is at the top of his game with this revealing book.

It started with the individual murders of the Osage people under mysterious circumstances. Conspiracies had been devised to usurp the riches by removing beneficiaries and transferring the proceeds to outsiders, mostly wealthy white oilmen and politicians. The newly formed FBI, inept and corrupt, made no progress at solving the crimes until J. Edgar Hoover, newly installed as the Director, put together an investigative team under the supervision of a former Texas Ranger named Tom White. This new team, dedicated to putting an end to the injustices, slowly began to expose the makeup of the conspiracies. Full recompense, however, was never achieved

Grann’s intense research and crisp narrative brings to light a disgraceful episode of heartlessness and prejudice in American history against our native brothers. It is devastating to realize that greed and selfish behavior could be so rampant and immorally condoned. This book is an eye-opener and shines a bright light on unacceptable behavior. You must read it.

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What a truly great book this one is. This book uncovers dark secrets of things that were done to the Native Americans and the bloody trail it left. This was very well-written and the research is second to none. I really enjoyed this book.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann is a very highly recommended account of the Osage murders in Oklahoma during the 1920's. This is sure to be on my top ten nonfiction books of the year. Simply Excellent.

"In April, millions of tiny flowers spread over the blackjack hills and vast prairies in the Osage territory of Oklahoma. There are Johnny-jump-ups and spring beauties and little bluets. The Osage writer John Joseph Mathews observed that the galaxy of petals makes it look as if the 'gods had left confetti.' In May, when coyotes howl beneath an unnervingly large moon, taller plants, such as spiderworts and black-eyed Susans, begin to creep over the tinier blooms, stealing their light and water. The necks of the smaller flowers break and their petals flutter away, and before long they are buried underground. This is why the Osage Indians refer to May as the time of the flower-killing moon."

After oil was discovered on land where the mineral rights were owned by the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma, the Osage became the richest people per capita in the world. Millions of dollars was distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" which could not be bought or sold but only inherited. As history has often shown, with great wealth come unethical, immoral people looking for a way to take advantage. In the case of the Osage it was through several methods including: charging them more than others for any good and services; having them declared incompetent to handle their financial affairs so influential white men were declared administrators of their estates, allowing them to legally swindle the Osage; and marrying an Osage tribal member. If these corrupt practices weren't bad enough, it became clear that the Osage were being murdered, through car accidents, poison, bombings, or outright shooting.

Mollie Burkhart saw her family slowed killed off, one by one. One sister was likely poisoned, while another sister was shot. Her mother was poisoned - and Molly herself was in danger. Molly wasn't the only family experiencing murder and mysterious deaths either. To make matters more complicated, anyone looking into the deaths turned up dead too. It became known as the "Reign of Terror" and it was unknown how high up the corruption went to protect the perpetrators.

A young J. Edgar Hoover took notice of the death toll of over twenty-four Osage, and saw solving these cases and bringing the perpetrators to justice as a means of increasing the importance of the new FBI. He put former Texas Ranger Tom White in charge. White proceeded to amass an undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau, and set out to uncovered the people and corruption that were behind the murders. Grann continues his research beyond the initial investigation, exposing facts which show that the corruption extended even further beyond the limited scope of the FBI investigation.

Killers of the Flower Moon is a riveting historical true crime account that reads like a mystery/thriller. The writing is superb and the presentation flawless. Grann does an excellent job describing the setting and people involved. Adding to the narrative are many period photographs of the people involved. This is a well-researched book and covers everything I look for in nonfiction. Grann has documented his sources in a vast section of chapter notes and includes an extensive bibliography, as well as sources for the numerous photographs. Killers of the Flower Moon is a great choice for history buffs, true crime enthusiasts, and anyone who appreciates a well-researched historical account of specific events in USA history.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Doubleday Publishing.
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America has an ugly history of racism and abuse of the original Americans. This book takes on part of that history, with a look at how racism against Native Americans allowed white European Americans' greed to practically decimate the Osage Indians. At the heart of it all is the almighty oil, which always seems to leave a bloody trail in its path. Some things never change.

David Grann does an excellent job of reconstructing the events of this tragedy. The writing is straight forward, with a style that's a mix of narrative nonfiction and history textbook. We get a clear picture of what it must have been like for the Osage to have gone from living off the land, their land, free and independent, to being tossed into a white man's world in which they were confined, controlled, ruled over, and murdered at will.

We also get a look at the fledgling FBI, and one investigator in particular who cared enough to delve into the heart of the Osage murders. Had any form of justice for Native Americans existed back then, these murders would never have gone on as they did. In retrospect, the killers and their motives are blatantly obvious. Sadly, the power of a select few over an entire race, along with the abject indifference of the masses, allowed greed and perceived entitlement to prevail.

I'd like to say that we, as a nation, have learned something from these past events, and that we have become more tolerant of "the other". But I think too many people have only gotten better at justifying racism, while wrapping it up in a patriotic flag.

For those who are interested in American history and Native American culture, this is a powerful but uncomfortable read.

In the early 1920s the wealthiest group of people could be found in a small corner of Oklahoma: it was the oil-rich land where the Osage people had been forced to live upon. Ironically a people who had to flee or been exiled from traditional hunting areas were now living in mansions, with servants, and fancy cars. But they were Indians, deemed so by a nation who determined they could not handle their own wealth and affairs. So guardians were appointed to make sure they bought the “right goods and services” at the “right prices” most often from these same white guardians. Yet even this was not enough for the greedy and jealous whites. Osage members were entitled to headrights, which gave them and their offspring the rights to the oil beneath their lands. This was the plum target of the “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

During the 1920s (and later reaching back and even beyond) many, including men, women and children, were murdered to gain these rights. Their killers were the guardians and pillars of the white community who were supposed to be their protectors. Some were shot, poisoned, mysteriously disappeared and even blown up. There were secrets, collusion, threats, graft and deaths to shield the killers over a period of years. And during this time, many tribal members lost family with no recourse or entity to protect them

Into this deadly mystery, J Edgar Hoover (FBI) begins one of his first investigations using a former Texas Ranger, Tom White, to determine who is behind these killings, and how to bring the killers to justice. White’s investigation is long, arduous and dangerous. It is also one of the first criminal investigations to employ the beginnings of modern forensic criminology. He must get results to stop the killing while making sure Hoover sees his progress.

David Grann takes the reader through the horrendous fear of the Osage people by meticulously introducing family and friends who were witnesses or victimized. He portrays the courage of Tom White and those who assisted him. Trials are followed rendering verdicts and sentences…but justice is often elusive. Grann goes beyond the “reign of terror” to the Osage today to show how the effect lingers in the memories of relatives and tribal history.

This is a necessary and well-told history about a little known atrocity that deserves a wide readership. Grann’s book is a mystery, a reckoning and a remembrance for the Osage and the nation. Excellent notes and the author’s dogged pursuit of all leads and details, earns this book a place on shelves for scholarship as well as those seeking a first-rate narrative that is both riveting and heartbreaking.

Highly recommended.

I received this book free from Net Galley, courtesy of Doubleday, in exchange for an honest review. It looked like a fascinating read, but I am disturbed by the sources chosen, which sent up all sorts of red flags right from the get-go and before I had even focused on the references themselves, a due diligence that has to be done before any nonfiction work can be recommended. Once I examined the references, I concluded that so many of them are so questionable that nobody, including the writer, can demonstrate anything beyond the premise of the book itself to be true. The killings happened; that's about it.

I am perplexed, because this kind of error is the sort I'd expect from a novice, perhaps a zealous but careless graduate student bent on self-publication come hell or high water. Grann, however, is an established journalist who's written for solid mainstream publications. He's published successful novels. This is his first nonfiction book, and I am surprised that it went to press without his own eyes or those of his publisher finding the glaring problems here.

Early in the text a fact is documented with a block quote from one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books, a series of YA novels loosely based on the author's experiences during the Westward Movement, as Euro-Americans pushed the frontier back and took possession of Native territory. Many years ago, an interviewer challenged Wilder on a scene in one of her books, one in which a man recounts having been surrounded, chased, and threatened by wolves. The interviewer pointed out that wolves don't do that, and Wilder tartly responded that she wasn't aware that she had been supposed to be writing history or biology, but rather stories she had made up for little children to read. Her only nonfiction is a memoir she wrote later in life, which was not as widely seen.

This historical fiction, then, is Grann's source material, and the fact that he chooses to give it a block quote also makes me wonder...if this is his good reference, what do the others look like?

A great many other sources are newspapers from what was then Western territory, newspapers from Oklahoma and elsewhere during the early 1800s. This is suspect material. There were no laws against printing inaccurate material, and journalists from this period often printed lies, sons of lies, and interviews based on lies, because there was absolutely no risk of penalty for doing so. To use sources like these, the very least a writer should do is find legitimate sources that agree with the questionable sources and cite both. This doesn't happen here.

I have no idea why a good house like Doubleday would release this book, or why the writer didn't use credible sources. Maybe he couldn't find anything else, but that's speculation, and I've just explained why nonfiction should not be based on guess work, on fiction based loosely on fact, or on unreliable sources, so I won't take this line any further lest I be guilty of the same.

I was going to close by recommending that the reader just looking for a good story and not concerned about the research might like the book, but then I am confronted by the other unfortunate aspect of this story: I was pushing myself through it. I wasn't spellbound, but as long as I believed there might be new information to be learned, I was ready to force myself to read this book, tedious though it is. With a DRC, I generally figure that once I've signed on, I have to make good on my promise. I wasn't reading because I was absorbed; once I got a sense of the narrative I was reading out of duty, and out of the hope that at some point this thing would pick up steam. My hope was derailed by the bad source material.

Not this time.