Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

"The decisions that birthed and perpetuated the epidemic were not made by employees or a management team, he reveals, but by members of this cultured clan of physicians, long acclaimed for their arts philanthropy ..."

"It is a long book and he walks a fine line between nailing down the facts and keeping the reader engaged ..."

"In Keefe's expert hands, the Sackler family saga becomes an enraging exposé of what happens when utter devotion to the accumulation of wealth is paired with an unscrupulous disregard for human health."

"Amid all the venality and hypocrisy, one of the terrible ironies that emerges from Empire of Pain is how the Sacklers would privately rage about the poor impulse control of 'abusers' while remaining blind to their own."

"But the story lives on in Keefe's book—juxtaposed, as it should be, with that of the Sacklers."

"a work of nonfiction that has the dramatic scope and moral power of a Victorian novel ..."

"Keefe is particularly damning of the current generation of Sacklers—his portrait of fashionista Joss Sackler who Instagrams her life and fashion brand while dismissing the source of her husband's wealth as an irrelevancy is deliciously arch."

"He is also indefatigable."

"In the past few years, numerous lawsuits filed against Purdue by state attorneys general, cities and counties have finally cracked open the Sacklers' dome of secrecy."

"Readers will be outraged and enthralled in equal measure."