The Osage Indian Murders: The True Story of a Multiple Murder Plot to Acquire the Estates of Wealthy Osage Tribe Members

by Lawrence J. Hogan

Book by Hogan, Laurence J.

Genres: History, Native American

282 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Koontzs · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was written by Lawrence Hogan who worked for the FBI in the early 50s, & used notes his had taken while summarizing the documents written by FBI agents during the ‘Reign of Terror’. It is a great resource for anyone wanting further & deeper info about events & people involved. The book is organized into chapters in such a way that it is easy to find the I donation. I did not read it from front to back originally. But my daughter did & then I did just to see if it read easy. It was not a smoothly crafted story like Killers of the Flower Moon, but I found it more authentic.

[Karebear (KRock42) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book side-by-side with Killers of the Flower Moon. While none of the FBI agents involved are named, it does delve more deeply into the investigations, along with witness and suspect testimonies, as it was written by the man who was tasked with reviewing all the files from the case. Very interesting read.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I checked out the audio book version of this book. I found this story fascinating. If I wasn't told it was a true story I would think it to be a work of fiction. The story does jump around but there are so many moving parts, that I can imagine it was hard to write as a streamlined story.

[Debbie Hoppe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is based on true stories and the beginning of the FBI. Greed and deception ruled the day when the Osage Indians found oil and wealth. I had already read another book on this so there was a lot of repeated information.

[Fco Acosta · Rating 1 out of 5]

Detailing the FBI investigation of a series of murders of Native Americans, this book is very well researched, with a lot of content of official notes, letters, transcriptions of confessions and many other material from the case. The author did a great job of gathering all this information, that's for sure.

However, the writing is much less commendable. Dialogue, when recreated, is awkward and fake-sounding. The FBI agents and their investigation are praised and complemented excessively, as mentioned in another review. Finally, the information in the chapters is presented sometimes a little chaotically - you may read a confession mentioning some details about the crime in one chapter, and read this same information, almost verbatim, in another context the next chapter; this redundancy is annoying, and makes the book flow not as smoothly than it should.

Due to its focus on a local affair (since the book only briefly touches the Osage tribe history, or the state of native americans on the US in the 1920's) and its writing problems, I would recommend you this book only if you are interested in (1) the Osage tribe, (2) the FBI history and development or (3) history of Oklahoma in the early 20th century.

[Lois Hecksel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating read; what was done in Osage County in the 1920s was a disgrace. The author is a former FBI agent and attorney and tells the story from the viewpoint of the FBI who were called in by the Osage Tribal Council to bring the murderers of 17 Osage Tribal Members to justice. This was a testing of the newly formed FBI agency and they took on the kingpin of Osage County, who bragged he had everyone, judges, lawyers, law enforcement, senators and even the governor, in his pocket, eventually bringing him to trial. Some of the chapters do repeat information given in a different context which disrupts the flow of the story although it remains a compelling story which impacted the future of the FBI as well as the small Osage tribe.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

atrocious truths and great injustice from our recent and local past recounted on these pages.