August 2018 Book, Killers of the Flower Moon

The book investigates a series of murders of wealthy Osage people that took place in Osage County, Oklahoma in the early 1920s—after big oil deposits were discovered beneath their land. Officially, the count of the murdered full-blood wealthy Osage native Americans reaches at least 20, but Grann suspects that hundreds more may have been killed because of their ties to oil.

In the 1920's, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered in the soil beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage Woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned.

Since this was the Wild West where oil men such as J.P. Getty made fortunes and treacherous gangs roamed, many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. Eventually the FBI took over. It was one of the organization's first homicide cases and they bungled it. In desperation, J. Edgar Hoover, the young director, turned to a former Texas Ranger, for help.


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