Jack is doing the review today
Killers of the Flower Moon – David Grann
This is a wonderfully researched book about a very dark piece of US history. A branch of the Osage nation found themselves accidentally sitting on top of a massive oil deposit on their reservation in Oklahoma. If what followed had been in the 18th or 19th centuries it might not have been too surprising, but it actually took place in the 1920s.
Over a period of years numerous members of an extended Osage family died – either mysteriously or simply murdered and they all had enormous income from the oil. To begin with no one was charged with any of the killings and there were various reasons for that.
Grann was determined to get to the bottom of the story and the book does just that!
I don’t want to give too much away, because I really want as many people as possible to read this, but here are a few pointers. Many of the Osage, despite their wealth, were put under the oversight of a white ‘guardian’; the State political situation was rampantly rigged, and one man was at the head of the whole shenanigans.
Behind all this, what would later become the FBI was just being set up and J. Edgar Hoover appointed an investigator called Tom White to look into the whole affair.
The two heroes of this book are Tom White and David Grann.
I thoroughly recommend it.
