It contains a lot of blow by blow type narrative that should have been excised by an editor, but one suspects that the rush to publish meant that this step was omitted. It is a book that I suspect that the author found convenient to write, rather than the better one that he might have written, after more research, assimilation of materials and application of judgement. Empire of Pain is the story of a dynasty: a parable of twenty-first-century greed.Īn angry, populist, gossipy book that doesn’t engage seriously with the issues In this masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, award-winning journalist and host of the Wind of Change podcast Patrick Radden Keefe exhaustively documents the jaw-dropping and ferociously compelling reality. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing Oxycontin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis – an international epidemic of drug addiction which has killed nearly half a million people. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations in the arts and the sciences. The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions – Harvard the Metropolitan Museum of Art Oxford the Louvre. Read by the author, Patrick Radden Keefe. The gripping and shocking story of three generations of the Sackler family and their roles in the stories of Valium, Ox圜ontin and the opioid crisis. Shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction Shortlisted for the Financial Times /McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award

Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction

Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe