What They're Reading

By Patti Hartog




Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Beginnings of the FBI by David Grann
The Sunday Evening Book Club is a co-ed group started more than 27 years ago, when the first selections included Understanding Islam, The Education of Little Tree, and A Year in Provence. Membership has evolved over the years and still includes a few of the original members. The book club meets once a month at 7pm on Sundays, rotating between members’ homes. Books are chosen at the end of each meeting for the following month, alternating between fiction and non-fiction and including at least one classic each year. Linda and Chris Valentine, members of the group for the past eight years, discussed their thoughts on a recent selection, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Beginnings of the FBI by David Grann.


What have you learned from Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Beginnings of the FBI?
Journalist David Grann has written a disturbing, informative account of the Osage Indians. In the 1920s, they were the richest per capita people in the world due to the oil reserves under the seemingly barren Oklahoma reservation to which they had been relegated. The oil turned out to be a curse. One by one many were killed. Their wealth was fraudulently taken. Public officials, doctors, trustees, and even one white husband were the culprits in what Grann has called a culture of killing. J. Edgar Hoover saw the opportunity to gain national attention for his new FBI, as agents uncovered a number of the perpetrators.

If you could hang out with a character, who would it be and why?
Tom White, Texas Ranger, was the hero. He led a complex effort with undercover agents using new methods of investigation. They successfully solved a number of crimes.

Why did you choose this book?
This book has been highly praised by many reviewers and critics and is a National Book Award finalist. The book reads like fiction, with themes of good and evil, trust and betrayal, innocence and exploitation, unsolved murders and mysteries solved. Tragically, it is not fiction but a true, important story.

If you love reading books that incorporate an element of history into the storyline, here's something you might like.