Pain Hustlers

Evan Hughes

12 October 2023
9781035034512
288 pages

Synopsis

Now a major film streaming on NETFLIX

‘I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. A tour de force.’ – Patrick Radden Keefe, award-winning author of Empire of Pain
'Everyone should read this book' - Sheelagh Kolhatkar, author of Black Edge


John Kapoor had already made a small fortune in pharmaceuticals when he developed a highly potent fentanyl-based painkiller that was as addictive as it was effective. Desperate to make the most of his new drug, he brought together an ambitious, persuasive and relentless group of young recruits who were willing to do anything to profit from this seemingly life-chanigng medicine.

This is the inside story of hustlers turned millionaires and a shocking exposé of how opioids entered the national bloodstream.

'A fast-paced and maddening account' - The New York Times Book Review

Previously published as The Hard Sell

'This is that rare story of the opioid crisis in which the bad guys face a genuine reckoning. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. A tour de force.'
'A fast-paced and maddening account . . . What’s most surprising and powerful about The Hard Sell is not one company’s criminality . . . as much as how institutionalized these practices were across the modern drug industry.'
A pacey crime caper set against the backdrop of the opioid crisis . . . When I tell you that reading “The Hard Sell” is like watching a Scorsese film, you will assume I am exaggerating. Pick it up and tell me I’m wrong