My book EMPIRE OF PAIN comes out today. It is an investigative chronicle of three generations of the Sackler family and the mark that they left on the world. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/612861/empire-of-pain-by-patrick-radden-keefe/

The book starts in Brooklyn during the Great Depression, with three brothers, Arthur, Mortimer and Raymond, who would all become physicians -- and entrepreneurs.

It traces the lives of these three brothers and the pharmaceutical dynasty they would establish, from the birth of modern medical advertising in the 1950s through the immensely lucrative marketing of Valium in the 1960s, to the introduction of OxyContin in the 1990s.

There are many good books about the opioid crisis; this book does something different. It is the origin story of the crisis - a tale that traces back to the birth of Big Pharma and the mingling of medicine and commerce that the original Sackler brothers helped pioneer.

It is also a story about philanthropy, and how, over seven decades, the Sacklers managed to preserve the good family name by making lavish donations to elite museums & universities, while obscuring their connection to the often sordid business that was the source of their fortune

The family did not cooperate with the book. In fact, they have been threatening to sue me and using a variety of heavy handed tactics to suppress this story since before I even started writing. It has not been pleasant!

But that, too, is part of what I wanted to relate in the book. This is a crime story: the Sacklers' company pled guilty to felony charges in 2007 - and again in 2020! That's what they call recidivism. If they were smalltime drug dealers, it might mean a 2-strike mandatory minimum