If you devoured Killers of the Flower Moon for greed disguised as civilization, trace another American dynasty's blood money in Empire of Pain by .
Buy on AmazonWhy It's Your Next Read
- Investigative journalism that reads like a thriller
- Dynasty unravels as bodies pile up
- Corporate evil hiding behind philanthropy & art
- Moral fury without preaching—just devastating facts
If you relished Grann's autopsy of American greed dressed in respectability, Patrick Radden Keefe delivers another masterclass in forensic storytelling—this time tracking three generations of a pharmaceutical dynasty that turned pain into profit while the bodies piled up. The same investigative rigor that exposed the Osage murders now illuminates how elite opportunists weaponized medicine itself, building an empire on the wreckage of the opioid epidemic with the same cold-blooded calculus you recognized in 1920s Oklahoma.
Keefe writes like a prosecutor with a novelist's instincts, transforming corporate malfeasance into a propulsive saga where every footnote lands like evidence at trial. The moral fury simmers beneath every revelation, never preaching but impossible to ignore.
This is the reckoning America's gilded families tried to buy their way out of—and failed.
What Readers Are Saying
"From the very first page, I was riveted...a fascinating read from beginning to end, and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough." — Yun, Goodreads
"Pre-ordered Empire Of Pain and read it in a few days. He does an excellent job of weaving the story together that makes it an incredibly enjoyable read!" — ClarkeBrower, Reddit
"A+ reporting and storytelling...Riveting and sickening. Investigative journalism at its best." — Traci Thomas, Goodreads
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