Author Guide · Lisanne Swart
Books by Patrick Radden Keefe
Patrick Radden Keefe has 2 books that belong on this shelf: Empire of Pain and Say Nothing. Both share the same instinct — take one story, follow it further and more patiently than anyone else has, and let it expose something much larger than itself.
By Lisanne Swart · 2 books · Nonfiction · Updated August 2026
01
NonfictionEmpire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
Patrick Radden Keefe · 2021
The Sackler family built one of America’s great fortunes, gave their name to museum wings on three continents, and quietly created the opioid crisis through Purdue Pharma and OxyContin. Keefe spent years reconstructing three generations of a family that chose, again and again, not to know what they were doing — and built an elaborate architecture of deniability around that choice. It is a story about money, respectability, and the specific kind of harm that only the powerful can inflict at scale.
This is Keefe’s defining book: forensic, patient, and never satisfied with the easy villain. He is less interested in whether the Sacklers are monsters than in the mechanism that let ordinary human beings behave monstrously one small decision at a time. That mechanism — how institutions launder harm into legitimacy — is the through-line of everything he writes.
02
NonfictionSay Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
Patrick Radden Keefe · 2018
In 1972, Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home and disappeared. Keefe uses her murder to unravel the entire architecture of the Troubles — the IRA, the informants, the code of silence that outlasted the ceasefire by decades. It reads like a thriller and functions like an autopsy of what political violence does to the people who commit it, long after the violence ends.
Say Nothing is where Keefe perfected the method he’d use again in Empire of Pain: take one crime, and use it to expose an entire system of complicity. What makes it extraordinary is his refusal to let anyone off the hook — not the British state, not the IRA, not the community that chose silence over justice for forty years.
Frequently asked questions about books by Patrick Radden Keefe
What is Patrick Radden Keefe known for?
Patrick Radden Keefe is a nonfiction author and journalist best known for Empire of Pain and Say Nothing, investigative work built on years of reporting rather than a single dramatic revelation.
Is Empire of Pain worth reading?
Yes — it’s the kind of book that rewards patience. Patrick Radden Keefe builds the case slowly and never resorts to sensationalism to hold your attention; the facts, laid out carefully, do that on their own.
What should I read after Empire of Pain?
From the bookshelf
“The story is never really about the crime. It’s about what the crime reveals.”
If this list resonated with you, you’ll find more books like these on my personal bookshelf — hand-picked for readers who want books that stay with them long after the last page.
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