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

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

152 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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prettiestwhistles's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

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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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burnourhistory's review against another edition

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informative sad medium-paced

3.5

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joshkiba13's review against another edition

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dark informative mysterious sad slow-paced

4.0

What a tragic story---a real story. I studied and did a project on the Osage nation for school, then saw Scorcese's film Killers of the Flower Moon, which inspired me to read the book. There was so much information; the way Grann was able to stitch everything together into a cohesive story was impressive. Getting to the end and seeing how many people came together to cover up crimes was heartbreaking.

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simmonsj's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

5.0

This review is for the audiobook.

The best non-fiction for me are the ones that teach me something while making it an interesting and engrossing story. David Grann does this very well with Killers of the Flower Moon. I knew nothing about the Osage reign of terror in the 1920s (I know there was a movie made as well but also never watched that). The history of the area and people as well as the chilling murders that permeated the reservation were well relayed and amazing to hear about - not in a good way. The racism, prejudices, and loose law keeping were rampant and the effects of that time are still felt today within that culture.

The story flowed well about 90% of the time. There were a few chapters that, while the information was important, I felt the chapters themselves were situated poorly in the book. For example, the story was moving along and then there was a sharp deviation to the history of the area. Wouldn't have been nice for these chapters to be a little earlier so the main events were not split in such an abrupt way.

I listened to the audiobook, and the three narrators were well picked. The first part of the book concerned the Osage - the narrator was a woman that gave weight to their history and present situation. The second part of the book followed a FBI agent, and the narrator really sounded like a seasoned law officer in between the wild west and the beginning of a more orderly law enforcement. The last part concerned Grann's research, and the narrator had an air of an older reporter about him.

Overall I think this is a very impactful, well told story and would recommend to anyone with a desire to learn more about historical events.

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