PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewPut simply, this book will make your blood boil ... The broad contours of this story are well known...But what would normally be a weakness becomes a strength because Keefe is blessed with great timing. 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. Thousands of court documents have become public through discovery, including internal company emails and memos that give new insight into the family’s actions and thinking. Keefe combines this wealth of new material with his own extensive reporting to paint a devastating portrait of a family consumed by greed and unwilling to take the slightest responsibility or show the least sympathy for what it wrought ... While other accounts of the opioid crisis have tended to focus on the victims, Empire of Pain stays tightly focused on the perpetrators ... While Arthur’s life makes for fascinating reading, he played no role in the OxyContin saga, which made me question Keefe’s decision to devote fully one-third of the book to him. Arthur’s heirs, who after his death sold their stake in Purdue to his brothers, Raymond and Mortimer, will surely bemoan this choice...It’s hard not to agree with them. Arthur may have been the first to blur the lines between medicine and commerce, and he pioneered modern drug marketing, but his sins pale compared with those of the OxySacklers ... the trove of documents that has since come to light through the multidistrict litigation, which Keefe weaves into a highly readable and disturbing narrative, shatters any illusion that the Sacklers were in the dark about what was going on at the company.
