'Killers of the Flower Moon' by David Grann

Killers of the Flower Moon, The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann  (3.0)

While I am glad I read this book, I was somewhat disappointed in it.  The subject was new to me – the FBI’s investigation of the systematic deaths of a tribe of American Indians in the 1920’s- and quite intriguing. The common emotion when reading the history is outrage and disbelief. It’s hard to imagine such obvious murders being ignored, regardless of their ethnicity. Unfortunately the way the book flows; it was not nearly as riveting as it should have been. The author seems to draw out some elements and move too quickly through others. Additional murders are briefly discussed in the last chapters that would have added to the reader’s anxiety during the main investigation. Oddly, even the title seems misleading. This investigation was obviously not the ‘birth of the FBI’ and the ‘killers of the flower moon’ seems like a forced description. Overall I wanted to like this book more than I did – it felt like a New Yorker article more than a book.