Summary
The book begins in Gray Horse, Oklahoma in April of the year 1921. Mollie Burkhart, the protagonist of the book, is a member of the Osage tribe and lives on the reservation in town. She sits and nervously waits for the return of her sister, Anna, who has not come home in a few days. Grann shifts focus and gives some backstory about the Osage. He notes that the land on which they were forced to settle by the U.S. government ended up being rich in oil. As a result, members of the tribe suddenly found themselves coming into massive amounts of money. While some of her neighbors choose to live lavishly, with large homes and expensive cars, Mollie leads a relatively quiet and modest life with her white husband Ernest, their two children, and her mother, Lizzie.
Anna was known to be something of a hard partier, which created strain in her relationship with Mollie, who disapproved of her lifestyle. She had left a party that Mollie had thrown a few nights before and hadn't been seen since. Ernest's brother Bryan claims that he dropped her off at her home after they saw a local theater production. After three nights pass, Mollie pushes everyone into action and they go looking for Anna. They find nothing. Eventually, a dead body is found by a young boy who is out hunting squirrels. Mollie and her other sister, Rita, come to look at it and find, to their horror, that it is Anna. Mollie weeps for her sister. At the same time, an oil worker stumbles upon a body with two bullet holes in the head and identifies it as Charles Whitehorn, another tribe member.
A coroner's inquest is carried out and an investigation is opened. A bullet wound is found in Anna's head, making it clear that she was murdered. However, little progress is made. The local sheriff is an older man with dubious connections to the criminal underworld. The sheriff's deputies thoroughly botch the collection of evidence, failing to dust for fingerprints, locate the bullet, or make any plaster casts from tire marks at the crime scene. A funeral is held for Anna, with a blend of Catholic and Osage traditions. Mollie watches as the casket is interred in the ground.
The community is rocked by the two murders and the sheriff seems unwilling to pursue the matter. Grann provides background on William Hale, the wealthy and mysterious landowner who arrived in Pawhuska years earlier intent on making a fortune. He notes how Hale accrued local favor and made himself one of the most powerful men on the reservation with broad influence in the area. Hale is also quite close with Ernest, who is his nephew. Hale receives many honorary titles and is often referred to as the "King of Osage Hills." He expresses his condolences to the family about Anna's death.
Mollie delivers her account of Anna's final hours to a jury, as part of the inquest. People begin to theorize about who might be responsible for Anna's death, suspecting that it is likely someone from outside the reservation. Tribe members also speculate that the killer might be Anna's ex-husband, Oda Brown. A young man claims to have been paid to murder Anna on Oda's behalf and for a moment he appears guilty. However, the confession appears to have several holes and does not hold up to scrutiny. Shortly after this, Lizzie rapidly deteriorates and dies. Mollie is further devastated and Rita's husband Bill becomes increasingly suspicious about what is going on.
Grann takes the story back in time, detailing the history of the Osage tribe. He writes that Thomas Jefferson expressed admiration for the Osage, but wrote treaties that forced them out of their ancestral home. They eventually settled in Kansas and then, after another unfair treaty, Oklahoma. In the meantime, they suffered greatly and their numbers dwindled from war, famine, and the destruction of the buffalo population. Mollie recalls that then, in more recent years, oil was discovered on their land, setting off competition between oil companies for the rights to drill on Osage land. The tribe became massively wealthy off of their oil.
Grann also recounts how Mollie grew up away from her family, in Pawhuska, as a result of a government order. She was raised on the reservation and later sent to a Christian school, where she learned to speak English. Following the oil discovery, white people began to arrive in Pawhuska to work on the oil derricks. The Osage and their white counterparts momentarily enjoyed the excitement surrounding this massive influx of wealth.
Analysis
Evil is immediately brought up as a major theme in the novel. The book begins on an ominous note, with the murder of Mollie's sister Anna and a man named Charles Whitehorn. At the end of the first chapter, Grann notes that Anna's death would be the beginning of a series of terrible events that would threaten Mollie's family and the entire tribe. He invokes the idea that this was not an accidental death, or crime of passion, but instead part of a larger, more sinister conspiracy against the Osage. He implies that these crimes are rooted in a truly human evil, carried out with calculated intention and complete disregard for human well-being.
Justice is another prominent theme in these chapters. Both Mollie and her brother-in-law, Bill, become frustrated and suspicious when the coroner's inquest and sheriff's investigation yield no results. Grann draws attention to the fact that the town sheriff is tied to local criminals and that his deputies are uninterested in the case and not competent in their methodology. This, coupled with Hale's wide-reaching influence on the investigation, suggest that no one is particularly interested in getting to the bottom of the case. Grann effectively shows the lack of interest law enforcement treated the case with, which initially appears to be apathy but is subsequently revealed to be something much worse.
Greed is also a major theme in these opening chapters. The Osage suddenly come into a massive amount of money when oil is discovered beneath their reservation. This immediately leads to competition among white oil executives and workers, as they hope to ingratiate themselves with the tribe and profit off of its oil. This also leads to immediate tensions between the Osage and the white people surrounding them, as they live in close proximity but suddenly have a massive class gap between them. In this section of the book, Grann foreshadows how much of an impact this envy will have on the Osage and what a direct relationship it has to the murders.
History also plays a key role in this part of the book. Grann gives important context about the history of the Osage. He writes that they were forcibly resettled on multiple occasions, leading to a massive decline in their population. This backstory proves to be vital to the story as a whole in that it shows how the Osage were constantly oppressed by a white power-structure that sought to cheat them at every turn. This puts the events of the book in sharper focus, as the oil money they receive only puts them in greater danger. They seem to be unable to escape systemic violence, as they are constantly playing a game that is designed for them to lose.
This first section of the book introduces the major characters and the main conflict without giving away too much of the central mystery. It also gives a sense of the historical factors at play on the reservation, including the recent windfall the Osage experienced as a result of their oil profits. In selectively choosing what facts to highlight alongside the mystery of the two murders, Grann subtly points the reader toward the motivation behind these atrocities while also giving a hint as to who might be the perpetrator.
