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

Reviews tagging 'Murder'

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

291 reviews

amberboo61997's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.25

Killers of the Flower Moon is an intense, yet fascinating true-crime historical narrative where David Grann tells the story of the Osage Murders from a straight-forward and almost impartial point of view. The short length of the book may surprise people given the subject matter, but a lot of this tale is tainted with false reports, hearsay, and limited information thus stunting Grann's (and even the FBI's) ability to tell the entire "truth". It also doesn't help that while writing the book Grann uncovered numerous other murders and conspiracies that added onto the insanity of a story that was already riddled with disbelief and purposefully hidden from public knowledge.
I believe the book is a good read even if a common critique is its lack of descriptive details into certain parts or aspects of the subject matter. It's a good introduction if you want to look into American stories hidden or deleted from history by the "winners" and shows how a government organization such as the FBI began and operated on its own self-serving needs.

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meant2breading's review against another edition

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4.0

“History is a merciless judge. It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset.”
The research done by David Grann for this book was of high caliber and was shared to us in a way that felt almost concurrent despite these horrific atrocities taking place a century ago. This book sheds light on the Reign of Terror (the rampant racism, corruption, greed, and the murders of the Osage people by primarily white people). It focuses mainly on the Burkhart family, the investigations involved, and touches on the FBI creation. It seemed Grann intended to respect and honor the Osage community in this book, who we learn will never have restorative justice. We also see a glimpse of the impacts of their generational trauma once all the motivations are clear. Hundreds of families have no closure either and it makes my heart and stomach ache. What a prominent reminder to know our history, especially its abundance of brutality.

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prettiestwhistles's review against another edition

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3.75

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emzireads's review against another edition

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dark informative mysterious medium-paced

4.5

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aliasinferno's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative sad fast-paced

4.25

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achi1's review against another edition

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5.0

The movie starring Lily Gladstone brought me here, so I already have a basic knowledge of the events during the Reign of Terror. That said, it’s a completely different experience to read and absorb all the details about the case. As a more reflective person I suppose it’s one of the reasons why I almost always prefer the book to a more visual experience with tv or movie adaptations. There are many details the movie either glossed over or omitted completely, such as the extent of the exploitation that went on in disguise of the so called guardianship scheme, or the grand scale of systematic killings of native people. It’s infuriating to read.

A quote from the grandson of one of the likely victims summarises this generational trauma in its essence,

"they ripped out too many pages of our history[…] A murdered Indian's survivors don't have the right to the satisfaction of justice for past crimes, or of even knowing who killed their children, their mothers or fathers, brothers or sisters, their grandparents. They can only guess—like I was forced to."

I’ve always enjoyed investigation journalism books. This is especially a brilliant and educational one. A must read.

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mabechel's review against another edition

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dark informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

3.25

It's an important part of history that I enjoyed learning. I mostly docked stars because the pacing was unnecessarily nonlinear in some parts, which made it more difficult to follow.

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sixtimes's review against another edition

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4.0

Incredibly informative and powerful. The author was able to make his technical writing concise in a way that made it easier for me to understand than many nonfiction books I have tried to read.

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river23's review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced

3.25

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kcup_espresso's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.5

I definitely wanted to like this book more than I did. I think this story is an important one, showing just a piece of the history in which white Americans brutalized and murdered what is suspected to be hundreds of Osage people. The beginning really had me hooked, being from Mollie’s POV. But once the POV shifted away from Mollie I had a harder time focusing. I didn’t think the parts that discussed the history of the FBI were as cohesive as I would have liked, I’m not sure. I did enjoy the last third of the book of the author talking to us directly about his research. My opinion of the narrative style of each section could possibly be swayed by the different audiobook narrators as well; I loved the first narrator but didn’t love the main narrator for part two. Overall I’m still glad I read the book and learned a lot.

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