I have been reading this book off and on for a while, and when I read that they are going to make a movie of it, I decided I should power thru and finish it. And I am glad I did! It tells the story of the Osage Indian murders in the 1920s. The Osage Indians were, like many tribes. forced onto "barren" lands as a reservation, but it turned into a real gold mine, as oil was discovered there. Soon, the Osage were among the richest people in the world.

Of course, white man couldn't have that and quickly started passing laws declaring the Native Americans were too "child like" to have that much money and the only thing that would save them would be white guardianship. And you don't need much of an imagination to see what kinds of corruption and thieving that led to.

Even worse was the idea of "headrights", which is the inheritance of the portion of the oil windfall. A white man could inherit the headright if the woman he was married to "died". Even more diabolical, if other of her relatives were to die first, she would gradually get more and more headrights, and then you could get them if she died.

The end results was literally countless Osage Indian deaths. This book documents some of the more egregious plots planned by the evil Mr. Hall, but only something like 20 may have been his planning. Literally hundreds of others died during this "Reign of Terror", often with little or no oversight.

White man's imagination and cruelty of "others" has no bounds and this story is a chilling example of it. A forgotten chapter that is well explored here. The only drawback is that there are a lot of names to keep track of. Really, if he is white, he is bad. There were a few who tried to stem the tide of violence, but it was a corrupt society from top to bottom. The FBI, early in Hoover's reign, came in and got some justice, but very little. Chilling story well told, with a great deal of sympathy and feeling.