Killers of the Flower Moon (Adapted for Young Readers): The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

“In 1912, at nineteen, he’d packed a bag, like Huck Finn lighting out for the Territory, and gone to live with his uncle, a domineering cattleman named William K. Hale, in Fairfax.”

Grann alludes to Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by comparing Ernest Burkhart to Huck Finn. The comparison implies that Ernest had an innocent, youthful thirst for adventure as a teenager until he came under the influence of his domineering uncle.

“Mollie eventually retreated from the creek with Ernest, leaving behind the first hint of the darkness that threatened to destroy not only her family but her tribe.”

Mollie has identified Anna’s body on the edge of Three Mile Creek, and the darkness, foreshadowing the violence yet to come, creates an atmosphere of fear and dread. The scene contains dramatic irony because the reader may be aware of Ernest’s role, but Mollie is not.

“For years after the American Revolution, the public opposed the creation of police departments, fearing that they would become forces of repression. Instead, citizens themselves chased after suspects.”

Grann sets the context for the opportunity Hoover sees for the bureau. This context also establishes the culture of lawlessness in the Osage Territory that leads to criminals becoming public figures.

“Was it just a coincidence that both victims had been wealthy Osage Indians in their thirties? Or was this, perhaps, the work of a repeat killer?”

Grann employs foreshadowing and rhetorical questions to guide the reader in examining the likelihood that multiple members of the Osage tribe would be killed randomly and lays the groundwork for discovering William Hale is one of the serial murderers.

“Lizzie relied on Mollie to deal with the authorities.”

Mollie is both a leader of her family and the bridge between the white and Osage worlds. Mollie is the delegate of her family, speaking with groups that are not Osage on their behalf. This excerpt also indicates that Mollie’s family was tight-knit, and Mollie took on the role of caring for her mother.

“His chest was often bare, and his head was shaved, except for a strip of hair that ran from the crown to his neck and that stood straight up, like the crest of a Spartan’s helmet.”

Grann uses a simile to compare the Osage man to a Spartan warrior. This man does not need armor like a Spartan, but his body and hair act as his armor.

“The Osage had been assured by the U.S. government that their Kansas territory would remain their home forever, but before long they were under siege from settlers.”

This passage is a reminder of the federal government’s many failures to uphold its agreements with Native Americans. It also foreshadows the government’s lack of will to protect the Osage people from either violent white settlers or, later, a series of brutal murders. The bureau assures the Osage that the murderer has been caught and imprisoned, but more Osage people are murdered after Hale is arrested.

“His skin was as pale as the belly of a fish.”

Grann uses this simile to describe the first white person Mollie sees. This animal imagery helps the reader see Mollie make sense of this exposure to a new world. It also suggests the white settlers who move to the reservation are out of place; metaphorically, they are fish out of water.

“With its great black wings of spray, arcing above the rigging, it rose before them like an angel of death.”

This menacing visual imagery of black wings and the comparison of arcing oil spray to a rising angel of death foreshadow both the doom oil brings to the Osage people and the power the oil will have over them.

“After Roan’s death, electric lightbulbs began to appear on the outside of Osage houses, dangling from rooftops and windowsills and over back doors, their collective glow conquering the dark.”

Grann uses figurative language to show that the Osage people find strength in numbers. They confront the literal and metaphorical darkness by hanging lights to keep one another safe and to overcome their fear. As outsiders pick them apart, their collective strength lets them face the “darkness” together.

“White and his cowboy hat towered over Hoover, who was so sensitive about his lack of height that he rarely promoted taller agents to headquarters. He later installed a raised dais behind his desk to stand on.”

Hoover is insecure and needs to manipulate his environment to maintain his image of power. He didn’t promote taller agents because he feared the appearance of weakness that his small stature might convey.

“As Sherlock Holmes famously said, ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’”

Grann uses an allusion to equate White to the famous detective Sherlock Holmes. It characterizes White as capable of using deduction to uncover the murderers. His technique also aligns with his goal to engage his readers in a murder mystery rather than a historical account.

“The agents sped past the old trails that cowboys had once followed—trails that were now replaced by cattle cars pulled by shrieking locomotives.”

Grann uses figurative language to show that the agents (known as Cowboys) are heading into a territory shaped by the past. The sound imagery of the “shrieking locomotives” suggests the pervasive, deafening presence of the modern world. The railroad represents the modernity and business that they will have to navigate in this investigation.

“Tom noticed that he always treated people the same way, no matter whether the prisoners were Black or white or Mexican.”

This observation is pivotal in Tom White’s characterization. In describing White’s father, Grann explains how his only parental figure enforced the law. Following in his father’s footsteps in a career in law, White also adopted his views on people.

“He hid, as Shakespeare wrote of a conspirator in Julius Caesar, his ‘monstrous’ face behind a smile.”

Grann’s allusion to one of the most famous literary examples of betrayal indicates the depths of Ernest’s betrayal of Mollie. Caesar was killed by those closest to him; Ernest marries and has children with Mollie so he can carry out the deathly scheme against her family and inherit her headrights.

“White liked to take mental notes about the criminals he met, in order to fix them in his memory—a skill honed from his time on the frontier when he could not rely on mug shots or fingerprints.”

Grann juxtaposes modern methods of crime solving (mugshots and fingerprints) with the skills necessary to succeed in the past and cement White’s position as a “traveler in the mist.” White must navigate the shift from the past to the present, but he brings his experience with him.

“White liked to interview people in a place they weren’t familiar with in order to unsettle them, and so he had Lawson taken to a room off the warden’s office.”

This detail suggests White’s prowess as a detective; he’s aware of psychological techniques that will make his subjects of interrogation uncomfortable and give him an advantage that might yield more information.

“Burkhart began speaking about William Hale—about how he had worshipped him as a boy, how he had done all types of jobs for him, and how he had always followed orders.”

The complex power dynamic between Ernest and his uncle William Hale accounts for Ernest’s complicity in Hale’s schemes. Hale uses his wealth and influence to manipulate Ernest and exploit him for his own purpose; by the time Ernest is an adult, the pattern is ingrained, and he yields to Hale’s most violent schemes, even when Ernest knows his wife’s family will be killed.

“White observed the way Ramsey kept saying ‘the Indian,’ rather than Roan’s name. […] Ramsey added that even now ‘white people in Oklahoma thought no more of killing an Indian than they did in 1724.’”

White’s recognition of the disrespect involved in calling someone by their race or ethnicity rather than by their name sets him apart from other white people in the book who dehumanize the Osage people. Ramsey, who had lured Roan into a canyon with whiskey, drank with him and then shot him. His words confirm that local attitudes toward the Osage people hadn’t changed in 200 years; many white people in his community still saw Indigenous people as less than human.

“Here are well-groomed business men, contesting standing room with roustabouts. There are society women sitting side by side with Indian squaws in gaudy blankets. Cowboys in broad brimmed hats and Osage chiefs in beaded garb drink in the testimony. Schoolgirls crane forward in their seats to hear it. All the cosmopolitan population of the world’s richest spot—the Kingdom of the Osage—crowd to catch the drama of blood and gold.”

Grann quotes an article from the Tulsa Tribune that notes the diversity of people who have come to watch the trial. With themes of greed, violence, and money, the drama’s lure transcends social group, age, and ethnic boundaries.

“At an earlier proceeding, Ernest was asked what his profession was, and he’d said, ‘I don’t work. I married an Osage.’”

Ernest’s bluntness in this passage conveys his (and other white people’s) attitude toward the Osage people: They existed to be used for white people’s financial advantage. His language further dehumanizes Mollie because he calls her simply “an Osage.” He lives off her money without the possibility of being a partner or contributing financially.

“I looked up and there was J. Edgar Hoover on his balcony, high and distant and quiet, watching with his misty kingdom behind him, going on from President to President and decade to decade.”

Grann cites this passage from a Life reporter who imagines Hoover as a royal authority figure who rules the FBI with an aura of power and aloofness. In this characterization, Hoover’s legacy transcends individual administrations and spans decades, indicating a belief in his lasting impact on the organization.

“The Osage had removed his image, not to forget the murders, as most Americans had, but because they cannot forget.”

The Osage people’s generational trauma is evident in a museum display where a strip of a panoramic photograph (the portion with Hale’s picture) is conspicuously absent—a poignant reminder of the Osage community’s enduring memory of its painful history. Grann contrasts the collective memory of the Osage people with that of white Americans to highlight the stark differences in their historical experiences. While the Osage Nation vividly recalls the tragedies of the past, white Americans, who dominate the historical narrative, have purposefully excluded the Indigenous experience from history lessons to avoid confronting the legacy of white atrocities.