A brutal crime and the beginning of the FBI
Every week, The Thread checks in with booksellers around the country about their favorite books of the moment. This week, we spoke with Karen Barros, from Another Chapter Bookstore in Owasso, Okla.
Barros recommends a book about her own state of Oklahoma — and about a crime that shaped the way our justice system works today.
David Grann's "Killers of the Flower Moon" follows the fate of the Osage tribe in the 1920s and 30s. The tribe was relegated to a corner of Oklahoma that the U.S. government considered a wasteland.
"The joke was on the government, because it was found that there was a huge area of oil underneath the land," Barros explained. Members of the tribe became stunningly wealthy — and then, they began to die.
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"The wealthiest ... started mysteriously being killed, murdered," Barros said. "This book explores those murders, and the birth of the FBI in solving those murders."
"We don't realize there has to be a beginning to everything — and the beginning to the FBI saga was very intriguing."
Barros said she immediately wanted to have her book club read it, even if they normally only read fiction. She convinced them, and "they were all just as enthralled with it was I was."