Author: David Grann
Year Published: 2017
Genre: Adult non-fiction
Pages: 316
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Location (my 2018 Google Reading map): USA (OK)
FTC Disclosure: I bought this book with my own money
Summary (from the inside flap of the book): In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured cars and lived in mansions.
Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed. Mollie Burkhart watched as her family became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. Other Osage were also dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who investigated the crimes were themselves murdered.
As the death toll rose, the case was taken up by the newly created FBI and its young secretive director, J. Edgar Hoover. Struggling to crack the mystery, Hoover turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White, who put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent. They infiltrated this last remnant of the Wild West, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.
Review: I have seen quite a few really good reviews, but it isn't the type of book I would normally choose to read. Then I saw a review of it in my college alumni magazine because it turns out the author went to Connecticut College just like me! Well, that sealed it. Everyone says the book is good and the author is a fellow camel? So here we go....
There are a ton of people in the story and it darts back and forth in time, so it took me a little bit to get into the rhythm of it at first. Once I relaxed into it I found the story really compelling. The events too place only a hundred years ago and it's the wild west in Oklahoma! The characters are gun-slingers, cattle rustlers, and highway robbers. It's all very exciting.
Grann has done an extensive and exhaustive research job and weaves together photographs, courtroom and witness testimony, and story telling to keep the reader hooked to the very end.
This book is the type of book my dad will really enjoy so I am going to give it to him now that I have read it.
FTC Disclosure: I bought this book with my own money
Summary (from the inside flap of the book): In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured cars and lived in mansions.
Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed. Mollie Burkhart watched as her family became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. Other Osage were also dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who investigated the crimes were themselves murdered.
As the death toll rose, the case was taken up by the newly created FBI and its young secretive director, J. Edgar Hoover. Struggling to crack the mystery, Hoover turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White, who put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent. They infiltrated this last remnant of the Wild West, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.
There are a ton of people in the story and it darts back and forth in time, so it took me a little bit to get into the rhythm of it at first. Once I relaxed into it I found the story really compelling. The events too place only a hundred years ago and it's the wild west in Oklahoma! The characters are gun-slingers, cattle rustlers, and highway robbers. It's all very exciting.
Grann has done an extensive and exhaustive research job and weaves together photographs, courtroom and witness testimony, and story telling to keep the reader hooked to the very end.
This book is the type of book my dad will really enjoy so I am going to give it to him now that I have read it.
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