Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (Book) (2017)

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, by David Grann

New York: Doubleday, 2017

List of main characters:

Mollie Burkhart, Osage living in Osage County, Oklahoma

Ernest Burkhart, Mollie’s husband

Anna Brown, Mollie’s sister

Rita Smith, Mollie’s sister

Bill Smith, Mollie’s brother-in-law

William K. Hale, Ernest’s uncle

Tom White, special agent assigned to the Oklahoma City field office for the Bureau of Investigation

J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Bureau of Investigation, precursor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

This new book by David Grann is a page-turner: literally. I finished it in four days. I found myself reading ahead every time I picked it up. But before you judge me, did I mention that the book contains numerous pictures? I just couldn’t wait to put faces to the people Grann wrote about (and, yes, to find out more). Flowers of the Killer Moon reads like a novel, although it is based on a true and sad chapter of U.S. history.

(This blog post about the book Killers of the Flower Moon contains spoilers.)

Here is a partial description of the book from the author’s website (click here for complete information):

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, 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. And it was just the beginning, as more and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances. . . .

Martin Scorsese might or might not (most likely would) be making a film version of Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI with Leonardo DiCaprio in the not-so-distant future. I was pleased to think that another neo-noir would likely be coming to theaters and video-streaming services in a year or so. And the book itself has so many noir characteristics: greed, betrayal, murder, violence, fear. From David Grann’s research and his writing in the third part of the book, it seems the fear spans generations.

Here are some links about the future of Killers of the Flower Moon as a film. Click on the publication title for the article:

• Osage News

• Tulsa World

• Variety

Killers of the Flower Moon is divided into three distinct parts, called chronicles, and each of the three parts focuses on a particular person. The first, “The Marked Woman,” introduces Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman who is losing her family members because of a murderer who seemingly cannot be caught. The second, “The Evidence Man,” focuses on Tom White, the special agent assigned to head the investigation into the mysterious deaths and murders on the Osage reservation.

The first two parts of the book reminded me of many films noir, but one especially came to mind: The Phenix City Story, which is based on real incidents in Phenix City, Alabama, in the 1950s. Corruption pervades everything, but the extent of the corruption is deep only because so many are complicit in it and profit from it. The combination is deadly in many films noir, and it is especially so in The Phenix City Story and in noir literature like Killers of the Flower Moon.

The third part of the book, “The Reporter,” brings readers back to the present and describes some of David Grann’s research findings that seem to have eluded the agents working the case in the late 1920s. Some of the investigators working under Tom White may have been bribed, but it seems more likely that many of them were so close to all the cases (and there were many of them) that they couldn’t put all the pieces together. And they couldn’t have known then how the fear and the threat of violence would be passed down. Even generations after the murders, interested parties don’t want secrets exposed.

I mentioned that the book has pictures, right? The photos, of both places and people, drew me in right away. The book is that much better because of their inclusion. Dividing the book into three parts that focus most closely on the principals—the people at the heart of the story—also brings readers in more easily and helps to increase the human interest aspects of an already fascinating story.

I do have two complaints about the book. A more detailed map on the endpapers would have been helpful. I kept wondering why Ralston, for example, wasn’t given a place on the map because the town is mentioned frequently. An index would also have been helpful in keeping track of all the names and places referenced throughout. The list of main characters that I provide above is abbreviated out of necessity: The author’s investigative work is detailed and exhaustive, and the entire period, the so-called Reign of Terror, introduces the reader to many, many names. When a last name cropped up that I knew had been mentioned already, however, I had no way (no index) to look it up and refresh my memory.

Please don’t let these omissions stop you from reading the book. Like I said, Killers of the Flower Moon is a page turner. I can’t imagine that other readers will be disappointed.