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

David Grann, a bestselling author and renowned journalist at the New Yorker, is known for his meticulous research and compelling storytelling. With master’s degrees in creative writing and international relations, Grann understands the importance of journalism as a recorder—and reshaper—of history. His other books include The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder (2023) and The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon (2009), a New York Times number one bestseller. A number of his true-crime essays for the New Yorker were compiled in The Devil and Sherlock Holmes. Grann is a frequent speaker on the “importance of historical memory to the dangers of complicity in unjust systems” (“About David Grann.” David Grann). By researching and sharing important history through engaging storytelling, Grann brings little-known (but dramatic) historical events to life. Through this adaptation for young readers, Grann ensures that this significant historical event is accessible to a broader audience, fostering an understanding of complex issues from an early age.

Grann’s investigative work on Killers of the Flower Moon involved searching the National Archives and “painstaking research […] (often looking for just a single name) to find a wider pattern that eventually revealed ‘hints of widespread murder’ in Osage” (Thoet, Alison.