A critical assessment of the merits of a subject, such as art, film, music, television, food and literature. Reviews are based on the writer鈥檚 informed/expert opinion.
If you haven鈥檛 yet come across the work of David Grann, consider yourself lucky: you have much to look forward to. This includes his latest and third book, Killers of the Flower Moon, a resplendent and gripping true-crime tale about a string of murders nearly 100 years old.
These killings, beginning in the early 1920s, involved the 鈥淥sage Indians鈥 in Oklahoma, who at the time were some of the richest people in the U.S.: Their land sat atop an ocean of oil earning them millions each year, which was dispersed among those in the tribe holding 鈥渉eadrights.鈥 A headright 鈥 essentially a share of the oil money 鈥 was the equivalent of a winning lottery ticket, though it could neither be bought nor sold. You could only inherit one, which naturally meant someone had to die. This began happening with alarming frequency in May, 1921, and continued for five years, either by bullet, bombing, car crash or the slow death of poison.
It was called the Reign of Terror and there were plenty of suspects. Many Osage weren鈥檛 seen fit to handle their own money, so a white guardian was assigned to manage their finances. Needless to say, not all had their ward鈥檚 best interest in mind 鈥 even when they were also their husband. (As one love-struck husband put it, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 work. I married an Osage.鈥) A logical place to begin looking for a suspect or two, but given the level of corruption among officials and the racist ideas of the day, little was done.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
Grann spends about a third of the book teasing out the story of the murders, largely focusing on Mollie Burkhart and her dwindling family. He then switches over to FBI Special Agent Tom White, who is sent by J. Edgar Hoover to get involved. It is 1925, the FBI is in its infancy, and the mercurial Hoover is determined to showcase his organization. White鈥檚 story is fascinating, and he proves to be a doggedly single-minded pursuer of the truth. As it turns out though, neither White nor the FBI got everything right, or even every one of their men; Grann ends up making a few discoveries of his own.
This is not surprising. Grann, who has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 2003, is an obsessive reporter who has made a stellar career of chasing down the strange and rendering the results in page-turning stories brimming with novelistic touches. As with his previous book, The Lost City of Z, this one provoked fierce Hollywood interest, eventually earning him a $5 million advance. It is a tale expertly told but one that is soaked in Indigenous blood.
James Macgowan is a frequent contributor to The Star鈥檚 book section.
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