A To Z Book Review: Killers Of The Flower Moon by David Grann

My letter “K” pick for the A to Z Book Challenge was Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann.

I love to watch true crime stories and documentaries, but I have to admit I don’t read them often. Since this challenge is about pushing out of my reading norms, I wanted to give this a read. The story is not only horrific in the sheer number of murders, the underhanded way they were perpetrated, the cover-ups by multiple parties, but also for the rabid hatred and greed that motivated it all.

This is also one of the earliest big cases solved by the newly formed FBI, in conjunction with other investigators. The plot concerns the serial murders of members of the Osage tribe in Oklahoma. These tribespeople had one thing in common besides their ancestry: wealth. There’s an old adage in just about every crime movie or documentary – follow the money. There’s almost always a money trail that trips somebody up and this story is a prime example. This particular Osage tribe owned land that was found to be sitting on top of a large reserve of oil. The federal government paid a handsome sum to the land-owning tribespeople that made them very rich, with a continued stipulation of payments in perpetuity.

As is the case in a lot of small racist towns where people are barely scraping by, a lot of white people were really angry that they were missing out on the money and that oil field was sitting on land they so generously gave to the Osage (after they took it from them in the first place and raped and murdered their people for decades, but of course, that’s not the way these yahoos saw it). The sheer number of not only murders but conspirators leads to a richly woven story with a hellish ride to the finish full of reveals and twists that will have you turning pages with one hand as the other sits firmly over your mouth.

I’m giving this one four stars, mainly because the pace is very slow until about 3/4 of the way through, and early on the plot meanders a bit too much for my taste. That being said, once it gets going it’ll grip you and hold you to the end.