Social Sciences
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Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history, from the author of The Lost City of Z. • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
"A masterful work of literary journalism crafted with the urgency of a mystery." -The Boston Globe
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage 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, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered.
As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.
Look for David Grann's latest book, The Wager!
"A masterful work of literary journalism crafted with the urgency of a mystery." -The Boston Globe
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage 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, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered.
As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.
Look for David Grann's latest book, The Wager!
Editorial Reviews
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, GQ, Time, Newsday, Entertainment Weekly, Time Magazine,NPR, Vogue, Smithsonian, Cosmopolitan, Seattle Times, Bloomberg, Lit Hub, and Slate
"Disturbing and riveting. . . . Grann has proved himself a master of spinning delicious, many-layered mysteries that also happen to be true. . . . It will sear your soul."
-Dave Eggers, New York Times BookReview
"A marvel of detective-like research and narrative verve."
-Financial Times
"A shocking whodunit. . . . What more could fans of true-crime thrillers ask?"
-USA Today
"A master of the detective form. . . . Killers is something rather deep and not easily forgotten."
-Wall St. Journal
"The best book of the year so far."
-Entertainment Weekly
"David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon is unsurprisingly extraordinary."
-Time
"A masterful work of literary journalism crafted with the urgency of a mystery. . . . Contained within Grann's mesmerizing storytelling lies something more than a brisk, satisfying read. Killers of the Flower Moon offers up the Osage killings as emblematic of America's relationship with its indigenous peoples and the 'culture of killing' that has forever marred that tie."
-The Boston Globe
"[C]lose to impeccable. It's confident, fluid in its dynamics, light on its feet. . . . The crime story it tells is appalling, and stocked with authentic heroes and villains. It will make you cringe at man's inhuma...
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, GQ, Time, Newsday, Entertainment Weekly, Time Magazine,NPR, Vogue, Smithsonian, Cosmopolitan, Seattle Times, Bloomberg, Lit Hub, and Slate
"Disturbing and riveting. . . . Grann has proved himself a master of spinning delicious, many-layered mysteries that also happen to be true. . . . It will sear your soul."
-Dave Eggers, New York Times BookReview
"A marvel of detective-like research and narrative verve."
-Financial Times
"A shocking whodunit. . . . What more could fans of true-crime thrillers ask?"
-USA Today
"A master of the detective form. . . . Killers is something rather deep and not easily forgotten."
-Wall St. Journal
"The best book of the year so far."
-Entertainment Weekly
"David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon is unsurprisingly extraordinary."
-Time
"A masterful work of literary journalism crafted with the urgency of a mystery. . . . Contained within Grann's mesmerizing storytelling lies something more than a brisk, satisfying read. Killers of the Flower Moon offers up the Osage killings as emblematic of America's relationship with its indigenous peoples and the 'culture of killing' that has forever marred that tie."
-The Boston Globe
"[C]lose to impeccable. It's confident, fluid in its dynamics, light on its feet. . . . The crime story it tells is appalling, and stocked with authentic heroes and villains. It will make you cringe at man's inhuma...
Readers Top Reviews
williamcaniAthana
The Osage Indians lived in Kansas until the 1870s when the government decided that their land was too valuable for them to own, and the Osage Indians were being forced off their land. The Osage Indians were moved to Northeastern Oklahoma on a patch of ground that was deemed worthless - until oil was discovered beneath the reservation land in the 1920s, those dirt scratching Indians became extremely wealthy. The federal government, due to the Osages’ inherent racial weakness, deemed them incapable of managing their own affairs and appointed guardians to manage their affairs, white guardians. Guardians who controlled their money for their own benefit - buying a car for $250, and selling it to their appointed dependee at $1,250 for a healthy profit. However, the tale of greed escalates to one of murder and a devilish plot to murder its womenfolk one by one, in a coldly calculated order, as would gradually bequeath their riches to white speculators in the end by the only viable means: inheritance. And here lies the macabre intimacy that marks this out from other stories of mass killing of American Indians: inheritance, of course, entailed marrying Native women, raising children with them while knowing the plan’s murderous outcome. Every effort is co-ordinated by the wealthy and the institutions of white settlersto hamper investigations until the fledgling FBI steps in. This is a well written - factual but in a flowing narrative, which takes you on a journey of first hand experience of how the First Nation people have been shamefully treated by the American's and their institutions and legal systems. David Grann has done a wonderful job of investigating these murders. Though some people were incarcerated for the crimes back in the 1920s, the more Grann dug, the more threads he found that led to other guardians who should have been investigated more thoroughly as well.
Vasily Pughwillia
A grim chapter of American history is brought to light with Killers of the Flower Moon, a book specifically about the Osage Native Americans and their betrayal by the government. Furnished with incredible wealth due to the oil on their land, the Osage should have thrived. Unfortunately, greed from outside forces took over and soon the Osage's land was plundered by the US government - something of a repeated motif in the nascent history of America. Within that there were also others who, jealous of the wealth, manufactured ways of eliminating certain families within the community. This leads to a cover-up and the eventual establishment of the FBI who slowly uncover the mystery. It's an enlightening read in many ways while its unusual to read J Edgar Hoover and the FBI as the heroes of the piece - at least initially. The problem is that what is a story about racial injustice - of this there can be no doubt - it does veer into a heavy-handed polemic. It's been fashionable in post-60s writing to simplify the story of America as 'White Christian Man Bad' - and we've all seen the joyous division that's sown! - but in a case as unfair as this, we really do not need the blanket statement seeping into everything. At one point an interesting discussion of how new-money Osage natives were patronisingly given overseers - it was deemed that they were too silly to cope with the riches on their own - verges into some nonsensical point about gender politics. It suggests that these overseers created specific gender roles that were alien to the people (Christian White Man Bad time) whereas even a cursory look at history would show that Osage culture already had defined gender roles. This was a bad thing, an evil thing or an incursion of 'patriarchy' on the Osage - it was just a simple fact of tradition. To use that as a stick to beat the settlers with is disingenuous. Ultimately, this is still a recommended book - it's worth paying the extra for the audiobook to hear some of it read in Will Patton's exquisite South Carolina drawl - but any sense of balance often disappears in tendentious writing.
SiriamVasily Pugh
Firstly I would state that this is a very well written book - it isn't till you read such examples you realize what a difference it makes to your overall enjoyment! I did not find it too journalistic like some other reviewers (though David Grann is a staff writer) and the author as the footnotes and Appendices show, has great command of voluminous historic paper data. Secondly, the tale it tells works so well because while it is at heart a 1920s crime story it uses the backdrop of the history of Native Americans and their treatment at the hands of the US government and white settlers to provide a much wider panorama to the events and the crimes. In this case the sudden growth of the domestic US oil industry at the turn of the century, created the situation that one of the largest oil reserves was found on the reservation of the Osage Indian nation in recently established Oklahoma. Ironically the tribe had only ended up there because of being forced off its original tribal lands by the government but had wisely in negotiating its purchase preserved its mineral rights. This quickly led to untold wealth and inevitably attracting interest from numerous white persons keen to acquire a share of the new wealth, given the historic approach in the USA to Native Americans. While the attempts by politicians in Washington, early oil magnates and local business and financiers in such a corruptible frontier environment to acquire personal gain provides the backdrop, the central story is the increasing use of cross marriage and murder to try and inherit family interests and ownership of such wealth which takes up the first two thirds of the book. Add into that mix the foundling National Bureau of Investigation (later to morph into the FBI) under its first appointed head Edgar J. Hoover and a scandal that in 1920s USA could not be tackled by openly corrupt local and state law enforcement was a heaven sent opportunity to prove the new national policing approach. The real hero of the tale is Tom White, originally a Texas Ranger who had recently joined the Bureau and was in retrospect the wise choice by Hoover that by his team's success helped make the reputation of his Bureau in leading the investigation. Sadly as with all such examples Hoover's autocratic approach reflected little subsequent gratitude but what moves the story beyond its crime plot is the final third where without giving the details away the proving of a wider conspiracy many years later after events had been forgotten is the real revelation.
carmenSiriamVasil
This is an incredible telling of the Osage murders that took place in the early twentieth century. Grann’s meticulous research, also presented with a treasure trove of photos, made this a book a “one-sit read” for me. I’d NEVER heard of this horror and had no idea that this case heralded the birth of the FBI, as it’s known today. In the final section, Grant introduces new research that spells the likelihood of several other well-known men being involved in the murders. The problem is that in this particular book, the cast of characters was already a long one, although Grann did exceptional work keeping the people, and their connections, clear at all times. In fact, he is one of the best authors I’ve read, when it comes to the ability to present a story of this scope But the new segment based on the authors findings, while intriguing, could fill an additional book. It just didn’t help this story. An Epilogue would’ve been more appropriate, providing and summarizing this new information. Not that this should be a reason to bypass this book. It’s truly a monumental work!
MiswiscarmenSiria
If you are interested in US history or the thoughtless ill treatment of Native American peoples, this is the book to read. We have all read of the countless broken treaties the US government has had with native Americans, but these stories will disturb you more. These people were preyed upon and murdered in the last 100 years with no real solution for the families. Law enforcement work was of little relief for these peoples, their families were too intimidated by everyone around them. Even love was hollow for them. I felt sorry for the victims and families but the process was sadly enlightening. While the story is complicated, I enjoyed reading it immensely. Trust me, the movie cannot tell the whole story, read it.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1
The Vanishing
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.
On May 24, 1921, Mollie Burkhart, a resident of the Osage settlement town of Gray Horse, Oklahoma, began to fear that something had happened to one of her three sisters, Anna Brown. Thirty-four, and less than a year older than Mollie, Anna had disappeared three days earlier. She had often gone on "sprees," as her family disparagingly called them: dancing and drinking with friends until dawn. But this time one night had passed, and then another, and Anna had not shown up on Mollie's front stoop as she usually did, with her long black hair slightly frayed and her dark eyes shining like glass. When Anna came inside, she liked to slip off her shoes, and Mollie missed the comforting sound of her moving, unhurried, through the house. Instead, there was a silence as still as the plains.
Mollie had already lost her sister Minnie nearly three years earlier. Her death had come with shocking speed, and though doctors had attributed it to a "peculiar wasting illness," Mollie harbored doubts: Minnie had been only twenty-seven and had always been in perfect health.
Like their parents, Mollie and her sisters had their names inscribed on the Osage Roll, which meant that they were among the registered members of the tribe. It also meant that they possessed a fortune. In the early 1870s, the Osage had been driven from their lands in Kansas onto a rocky, presumably worthless reservation in northeastern Oklahoma, only to discover, decades later, that this land was sitting above some of the largest oil deposits in the United States. To obtain that oil, prospectors had to pay the Osage for leases and royalties. In the early twentieth century, each person on the tribal roll began receiving a quarterly check. The amount was initially for only a few dollars, but over time, as more oil was tapped, the dividends grew into the hundreds, then the thousands. And virtually every year the payments increased, like the prairie creeks that joined to form the wide, muddy Cimarron, until the tribe members had collectively accumulated millions and millions of dollars. (In 1923 alone, the tribe took in more than $30 million, the equivalent today of more than $400 million.) The Osage were considered the wealthiest people per capita in the world. "Lo and behold!" the New York weekly Outlook exclaimed. "The Indian, instead of starving to death . . . enjoys a steady income that turns bankers green with envy."
The public had become transfixed by the tribe's prosperity, which belied the images of American Indians that could be traced back to the brutal first contact with whites-the original sin from which the country was born. Reporters tantalized their readers with stories about the "plutocratic Osage" and the "red millionaires," with their brick-and-terra-cotta mansions and chandeliers, with their diamond rings and fur coats and chauffeured cars. One writer marveled at Osage girls who attended the best boarding schools and wore sumptuous French clothing, as if "une très jolie demoiselle of the Paris boulevards had inadvertently strayed into this little reservation town."
At the same time, reporters seized upon any signs of the traditional Osage way of life, which seemed to stir in the public's mind visions of "wild" Indians. One article noted a "circle of expensive automobiles surrounding an open campfire, where the bronzed and brightly blanketed owners are cooking meat in the primitive style." Another documented a party of Osage arriving at a ceremony for their dances in a private airplane-a scene that "outrivals the ability of the fictionist to portray." Summing up the public's attitude toward the Osage, the Washington Star said, "That lament, ‘Lo the poor Indian,' might appropriately be revised to, ‘Ho, the rich redskin.' "
Gray Horse was one of the reservation's older settlements. These outposts-including Fairfax, a larger, neighboring town of nearly fifteen hundred people, and Pawhuska, the Osage capital, with a population of more than six thousand-seemed like fevered visions. The streets clamored with cowboys...
The Vanishing
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.
On May 24, 1921, Mollie Burkhart, a resident of the Osage settlement town of Gray Horse, Oklahoma, began to fear that something had happened to one of her three sisters, Anna Brown. Thirty-four, and less than a year older than Mollie, Anna had disappeared three days earlier. She had often gone on "sprees," as her family disparagingly called them: dancing and drinking with friends until dawn. But this time one night had passed, and then another, and Anna had not shown up on Mollie's front stoop as she usually did, with her long black hair slightly frayed and her dark eyes shining like glass. When Anna came inside, she liked to slip off her shoes, and Mollie missed the comforting sound of her moving, unhurried, through the house. Instead, there was a silence as still as the plains.
Mollie had already lost her sister Minnie nearly three years earlier. Her death had come with shocking speed, and though doctors had attributed it to a "peculiar wasting illness," Mollie harbored doubts: Minnie had been only twenty-seven and had always been in perfect health.
Like their parents, Mollie and her sisters had their names inscribed on the Osage Roll, which meant that they were among the registered members of the tribe. It also meant that they possessed a fortune. In the early 1870s, the Osage had been driven from their lands in Kansas onto a rocky, presumably worthless reservation in northeastern Oklahoma, only to discover, decades later, that this land was sitting above some of the largest oil deposits in the United States. To obtain that oil, prospectors had to pay the Osage for leases and royalties. In the early twentieth century, each person on the tribal roll began receiving a quarterly check. The amount was initially for only a few dollars, but over time, as more oil was tapped, the dividends grew into the hundreds, then the thousands. And virtually every year the payments increased, like the prairie creeks that joined to form the wide, muddy Cimarron, until the tribe members had collectively accumulated millions and millions of dollars. (In 1923 alone, the tribe took in more than $30 million, the equivalent today of more than $400 million.) The Osage were considered the wealthiest people per capita in the world. "Lo and behold!" the New York weekly Outlook exclaimed. "The Indian, instead of starving to death . . . enjoys a steady income that turns bankers green with envy."
The public had become transfixed by the tribe's prosperity, which belied the images of American Indians that could be traced back to the brutal first contact with whites-the original sin from which the country was born. Reporters tantalized their readers with stories about the "plutocratic Osage" and the "red millionaires," with their brick-and-terra-cotta mansions and chandeliers, with their diamond rings and fur coats and chauffeured cars. One writer marveled at Osage girls who attended the best boarding schools and wore sumptuous French clothing, as if "une très jolie demoiselle of the Paris boulevards had inadvertently strayed into this little reservation town."
At the same time, reporters seized upon any signs of the traditional Osage way of life, which seemed to stir in the public's mind visions of "wild" Indians. One article noted a "circle of expensive automobiles surrounding an open campfire, where the bronzed and brightly blanketed owners are cooking meat in the primitive style." Another documented a party of Osage arriving at a ceremony for their dances in a private airplane-a scene that "outrivals the ability of the fictionist to portray." Summing up the public's attitude toward the Osage, the Washington Star said, "That lament, ‘Lo the poor Indian,' might appropriately be revised to, ‘Ho, the rich redskin.' "
Gray Horse was one of the reservation's older settlements. These outposts-including Fairfax, a larger, neighboring town of nearly fifteen hundred people, and Pawhuska, the Osage capital, with a population of more than six thousand-seemed like fevered visions. The streets clamored with cowboys...
