Killers of the Flower Moon

David Grann is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine and the author of two other books: The Lost City of Z (2009) and The Devil and Sherlock Holmes (2010). He received the George Polk Award in Journalism in 2009.

More than just the author of the book, he enters the narrative in the third section, entitled “The Reporter,” which describes Grann’s research and efforts to uncover the truth behind the Osage Reign of Terror. Grann’s efforts find evidence that the Bureau’s original investigation only solved some of the era’s killings, and that the murders took place over decades and involved many more of the area’s officials than originally concluded.

Mollie Burkhart (1886 to 1937) was an Osage woman who was married to Ernest Burkhart, a white man; they had three children, one of whom died in childhood. Grann introduces the tale of the Osage Reign of Terror in the 1920s through Mollie’s family’s story: Three of her sisters and her mother were victims.

Mollie is portrayed as a strong woman who cared for her mother Lizzie and watched over her wayward sister Anna. Mollie was also doubly in danger from the murder conspiracy. Not only were the doctors who treated her diabetes almost certainly poisoning her, but Mollie and her children were also targeted more directly: Only by a twist of fate were they not at a house that was bombed.