Reviews with content warning for Classism - Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

Reviews tagging 'Classism'

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

34 reviews

eucalyptusrising's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

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katie0528's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

4.0

This book retells the largely forgotten murders of several Osage people in the 1920s and how the case and its fame solidified the J. Edgar Hoover's control over the FBI and allowed him to shape it into the institution it is today. This book is DARK. It is broken into three parts, each with its own narrator. The first follows an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, as her family members begin dying around her. The second follows the lead FBI investigator, Tom White, as he and his team try and crack the case. The third follows the author as he researches the book, and learns that so many more Osage died than what the FBI ever investigated, and that the rot of the case goes so much deeper and the Osage community lives with the deep scars to this day, even as the rest of the world has moved on and forgotten. It's a tragic book, but very well written, and I liked the three narrator approach to the audiobook.

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nattiemoff's review against another edition

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dark informative sad

4.0

I’ve always said religion is the root of all problems. After this book, I’m going to amend that to religion, capitalism, and men are the root of all problems.

Side note: lots of players, therefore can be hard to follow.

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issyd23's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

“‘the devil was standing right there.’…the missing panel: showed William K Hale, staring coldly at the camera. The Osage had removed his image, not to forget the murders, as most Americans had, but because they cannot forget.” 4🥀

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sierrah_2101's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.25

"Virtually every element of society was complicit in the murderous system." -David Grann

I read Grann's novel in tandem with watching Scorsese's film, which only intensified both works' emotional impact on me. Grann's novel, which he spent over a decade researching, focused on Tom White's investigation into the 20-year terrorization of the Osage Nation. White recognized 24 murders associated with this reign, but Grann offers a significantly higher total: 60+. Throughout the novel, Grann offers many options for motives to these murders, but he offers you the above quote: money, power, greed, stolen through a government, a culture that was not only blind to it but complicit to it.

Although passionately researched by Grann over many years, my main gripe with the novel matched the opinion of DiCaprio: Upon reading the screenplay directly adapted from Grann's novel, DiCaprio realized how focused on White, and the true crime/procedural aspects of the novel. Thus, for the film, he offered that the story focuses more on the Osage themselves, specifically on Mollie Burkhart. This, emotionally, is where Grann stumbles the most. While packed with true crime intrigue, the novel focuses the vast majority of the pages on White, his history, and his contributions to the growth and development of the FBI.

This isn't to say that it was poorly written or didn't have a clear emphasis on empathy and self-awareness (of ourselves and the privileges we receive from our culture and system of government). Grann leads us through the mystery in such an intriguing way I could not put the book down for two days straight. His writing style, while simple, was straightforward in all the ways it needed to be. There was no beating around the bush on how horrible these people were. Not to mention, Grann pressed on to meet and interview many Osage families and connect tens more murders to the original "outbreak". It felt cathartic as a reader, and I hope it was even more so for the families that had been waiting a century for closure.

"Killers of the Flower Moon", the film and the novel, are heavy, heart-wrenching works that every American should be exposed to. The sheer nakedness of greed is still occurring today, with the same amount of deeply ingrained racism. Grann's novel taps into these ideas with beauty and tact, and both his and Scorsese's work. I only wish one day these stories will be told by American Indians themselves.

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sheriffrockyraccoon's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative mysterious sad fast-paced

4.0

While I am a movie person and obviously watched the Oscars this year where its movie adaptation was frequently nominated, I had managed to avoid knowing much about the Osage murders before reading this book.

David Grann’s writing is fantastic. He manages to keep his language accessible and fluid while also not deviating too far from the facts of the case. This book is part thriller, part nonfiction, and while it is easy to cross that line into sensationalism, I believe Grann worked incredibly hard to make sure the families of the victims were heard and not drowned out by the “true crime” aspects of the case.

The last chapter, “A Case Unsolved”, devastated me. Just when you think there has been justice for these people ignored by the U.S. government, you see how far the conspiracy goes. It was heartbreaking and real, which I appreciated considering how easy it is today to write a true crime story in the form of a ghost story. This book served as a brutal reminder of the treatment Indigenous Americans have endured- and still endure- at the hands of the government.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in U.S. history, especially that of the Wild West. While it may be after the period we consider “Western”, it holds the same ideology even as the country moves into a different era.

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