Started this one this morning and couldn’t put it down. Such an infuriating story, so many families traumatized over and over - still traumatized to this day. so many murderers got away with their crimes. Review to come.

Captivating, devastating, and bonkers

A stunning and often difficult read that simultaneously makes you despair of (white) humanity as a whole, while admiring individual instances. I read Sherman Alexie's Reservation Blues just prior to this, which is pretty much filled with disdain for white people. I understood that in theory, but now I have a deeper appreciation of the specifics. Apart from the inherent inhumanity of the main perpetrator (no spoilers!) the endemic racism and paternalism that both treated the Osage people as children while lining up to feed at the cash trough will make you cringe.

Interesting history about a people, a time, and a place that is foreign to me but also shockingly close. Writing style was fine

3.5 stars. I learned a lot. A whole lot. About the Osage Nation. The structural intentional racism and injustices of the U.S. government. The history of the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover's rise to power. Fascinating, complicated, sad, and anger inducing story.

But the writing style switched back and forth from storytelling to fact giving in ways that bothered me. The different parts almost felt like different books. There were parts that seemed really important that were told without a lot of details that I wanted. Then other parts that seemed to follow unnecessary tangents. I'm glad I read it, but would've appreciated some better editing.

I’m giving this book a 5 star rating mainly because it lays out information quite easily, in a straight forward way and everyone should know what happened. Honestly, I’m fairly well read, college educated, somewhat up on current events (though I hate watching the news) and I’m amazed I had not heard about this until this past week. I’m 56 years old and this event has somehow escaped my education. It isn’t written the same way a story is normally written (IMO) and maybe, because I usually don’t read non-fiction, it is more blunt and fact giving. If most books I read are like a Lifetime Movie, this is more like something from the ID Channel. The book mainly focuses on one family, but until you get to the Acknowledgments, you really don’t know how encompassing the crimes really were.

If this ever makes it to the big screen, my hope is that the movie is portrayed accurately since I know many people won’t read the book. But they should.

Wow this one rocked! I definitely wanted to check this out before the movie. Highly recommend. It’s a quick read and fascinating look at a slice of history I honestly knew nothing about. Great mix between historical background and investigative journalism.

i was looking through libby and this book popped up - and as a lover of the wager and following all the hype from the movie i gave it a go!

super super informative book with a clear storyline and a ton of research put into it. such a tragic and horrific period in american history that honestly is never spoken about. i thought the writing was easy to follow and the storyline was clear. i think for a nonfiction it did a good job of staying engaging and interesting throughout.

The first and last sections are five stars - really well told stories. In between it dragged. Overall, an eye opening, tragic, story about Osage Indians, the birth of Oklahoma, and the FBI.

A look at another shameful part of American history -- one I didn't learn about in school. This book weaves together wonderfully the story of the Osage murders and the rise of the FBI, and informs us that there were more terrible things happening to the Osage people than what made the newspapers. The book also did something worth five stars: it made me want to learn more.