Killers of the Flower Moon - David Grann - a generous 3 stars

[[deleted user]]

I really wanted to like this book more, and I can't place why I can't rate it higher than 3 stars. It may be that I wanted more about the beginning of the FBI rather than the murders that helped make it's name in America and the world.

What I did find interesting, though, was the influence on Laura Ingalls Wilder and Little House on the Prairie, and also the following quote which reminded me of Gatsby's home (quote from Fitzgerald included for context):

"Certainly during the Roaring Twenties, a time marked by what F. Scott Fitzgerald called “the greatest, gaudiest spree in history,” the Osage were not alone in their profligacy.... With an interior modeled after the fourteenth-century Palazzo Davanzati in Florence, the house had fifty-five rooms (including a ballroom with a gold-leaf ceiling and Waterford crystal chandeliers), twelve bathrooms, seven fireplaces, three kitchens, and an elevator lined with buffalo skin. The grounds contained a swimming pool and polo fields and a golf course and five lakes with islands."

[Joanne]

I picked this up a few times and could not get attached to it

[NancyJ]

That's a great example of excess. I like to think that if I were filthy rich, I'd live pretty much the same way I do now, but in a slightly bigger house, with a better view.

I'm sorry you didn't like it more. I really loved it, even though it does move quite slowly at the beginning. I especially admired the author's detailed research, and the way he gradually expanded the scope of the story. I guess it also helps that I have a Native American connection, so it felt more personal to me. I feel like it's a story that everyone should know.

[[deleted user]]

NancyJ, a connection would definitely have increased my rating - it probably doesn't help that I live in the UK too.