Book reviews – Killers of the Flower Moon

Killers of the Flower Moon
by David Grann

In the 1920s, the richest people in the world per capita were the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. They had been forcibly removed from their tribal lands in Kansas to a rocky reservation in Oklahoma. The American Government was totally unaware that beneath this rocky land lay one of the richest oil fields in America. The Osage became extremely wealthy – they bought cars, built mansions and sent their children to study in Europe. Then the killings started, with Mollie Burkhart’s family becoming a prime target. Over a period of five years more than two dozen Osage Indians were killed. They were poisoned, shot, blown up and hit by cars, and all for their money and oil rights. The tribe dubbed it “The Siege of Terror”. As the death toll rose, the FBI took up the case, the aptly named Tom White was asked to investigate the deaths. What he exposed in this non-fiction narrative is one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history to date.