Reviews

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

apost1e_pau1's review against another edition

emotional informative mysterious medium-paced

4.75

brucy's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

3.5

laurakershaw's review against another edition

4.0

Awesome exposition and description of something that should be general knowledge in every US history class. Why don't we ever talk more critically about the bad parts of Americas past in school? Realizing how little I know about American history started here.

emmasbooks123's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective

4.0

crybabybea's review against another edition

Not for me. I think this was way too overwrought with useless facts and information that weren’t relevant to the story. I found the midsection about the creation of the FBI super boring and it felt like the author couldn’t decide what he actually wanted to write about. It’s written like a murder mystery but it’s clear who the culprit is and the motive behind the murders; maybe that’s the point but it made the whole setup of the book feel weird and unnecessary tonally. 

I don’t know maybe I’m being a bit too crazy but I just didn’t like the way the story stopped focusing on the Osage and instead focused on the creation of the FBI and the white agents who were involved with the case, especially since the Osage people were such an important part of the case being solved, and especially especially knowing how the police/FBI have completely failed the indigenous communities and MMIW. 

I’m also not a true crime fan in general and don’t really care to hear interviews of suspects and details about crime scenes or whodunnit stories, so I just didn’t like this. 

The information about the Osage community, their wealth, and the way systemic racism affected them was properly enraging but I just don’t know if this author was the right person to tell that story. 

The audiobook narrator talks like Zapp Brannigan which irritated me lol 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Sexism, Gun violence, Racism, Blood, and Medical content

iowxy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

april_r's review

emotional informative

4.0

bergsteiger's review against another edition

2.0

While the content was certainly interesting, I had a couple of problems with the book. First, the author wasn't sure whether he wanted to write a murder mystery, history book, self-promotion piece, or a social justice work. Similarly, the content itself was all over the place, moving from the murders in the 1920s to such topics as Osage ballet, Ted Turner's bison and Oklahoma wind farms. The core piece of this book, the investigation itself, would have made an intriguing article in The Atlantic Monthly. Adding on scattered attempts at context and a 4 hour rambling epilogue, just made this a disinteresting slog. I'm thankful it was a book on tape and with a long week of driving was able to knock this out.

It is really too bad as the story itself almost defies imagination. As a chapter in a book on exploitation of Native communities or corruption in the US, it would work wonderfully. As a book...

Probably more of a 2.5 star rating, but for mauling such an interesting and relevant topic I have to round down.

sedarnell10's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious sad medium-paced

airessreadstoo's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad

3.75