★ 09/07/2015
This exhilarating blow-by-blow account details how brothers Chris and Jeff George and their sidekick, Derik Nolan, steroids-fueled collaborators with no prior medical experience, exploited Florida's lax prescription drug laws to operate the largest pain clinic in the United States, from 2008 until a raid brought it all crashing down in 2010. Money poured in so fast that bills were stuffed in garbage cans behind cashier windows. A corrupt doctor taught the brothers how to sell massive quantities of the legally controlled (and highly addictive) painkiller oxycodone under the guise of a medical clinic. As long as a physician prescribed the drug and told so-called patients to adhere to the recommended dosage, everything was considered on the up and up. Eventually, the George brothers ran rival clinics, and Chris George's American Pain became the premier facility of its kind on the East Coast, luring junkies from as far away as Kentucky and Ohio, where oxycodone control laws are tougher. Journalism professor Temple (The Last Lawyer) dissects the Georges' criminal operation and documents the rise and fall of American Pain with precision and authority in this highly readable true crime account. Agent: Jacqueline Flynn, Joelle Delbourgo Associates. (Sept.)
American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America's Deadliest Drug Epidemic
Narrated by Charlie Thurston
John TempleUnabridged — 10 hours, 18 minutes
American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America's Deadliest Drug Epidemic
Narrated by Charlie Thurston
John TempleUnabridged — 10 hours, 18 minutes
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Overview
American Pain chronicles the rise and fall of this game-changing pill mill and how it helped tip the nation into its current opioid crisis. The narrative, which swings back and forth between Florida and Kentucky, is populated by a diverse cast of characters. This includes the incongruous band of wealthy bad boys, thugs, and esteemed physicians who built American Pain, as well as the penniless Kentucky clans who transformed themselves into painkiller trafficking rings. It includes addicts whose lives were devastated by American Pain's drugs, and the federal agents and grieving mothers who labored for years to bring the clinic's crew to justice.
Editorial Reviews
John Temple’s American Pain takes you on a hysterically funny, yet equally tragic, tour of Florida’s pill mill industry as the painkiller epidemic was reaching a fever pitch.... a must-read for anyone trying to understand this government-sanctioned drug and the destructive power of Big Pharma.”—Melisa Wallack, 'scar-nominated co-writer of Dallas Buyers Club
“American Pain made me angrier with every page. Why? Because John Temple has so adeptly reported this story of how a handful of criminals and shady doctors in Florida profited from the poverty and addiction of the Appalachian South." —James Higdon, national bestselling author of The Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate’s Code of Silence and the Biggest Marijuana Bust in American History
“John Temple’s American Pain is as addicting a read as the little pills he writes about. Temple details the brazen operations of some of America’s largest pill mills and how they thrived in plain sight for years before the government took action.”—Jason Ryan, author of Jackpot: High Times, High Seas, and the Sting That Launched the War on Drugs
In his masterful nonfiction book American Pain, John Temple lays bare the perfect storm of lax regulation, aggressive marketing, greed, and addiction that created an opioid epidemic. .. .Temple’s writing is propulsive
Fascinating.. .. thoroughly reported.. .. American Pain offers a window into America’s drug-addiction epidemic.
Writing evenly and efficiently, [in Deadhouse] Temple will enlighten fans of the CSI television shows. Teens, especially fans of CSI and Mary Roach’s Stiff, will find the perspectives from two college-age interns particularly involving.
[Deadhouse gives] an insider’s view of one of the country’s most misunderstood professions.
[Deadhouse is] fascinating … Temple invests his subjects with a warm humanity, providing insight into lives that are not nearly as glamorous as they appear in television dramas, but far more interesting.
"Journalism professor Temple dissects the Georges' criminal operation and documents the rise and fall of American Pain with precision and authority in this highly readable true crime account." —Publishers Weekly Starred Review
Writing evenly and efficiently, [in Deadhouse] Temple will enlighten fans of the CSI television shows. Teens, especially fans of CSI and Mary Roach’s Stiff, will find the perspectives from two college-age interns particularly involving.
" In his masterful nonfiction book American Pain, John Temple lays bare the perfect storm of lax regulation, aggressive marketing, greed, and addiction that created an opioid epidemic. .. .Temple’s writing is propulsive, and does justice to the many legal and ethical gray areas of the story. The fates of George, Nolan, their staff, and the doctors involved with American Pain are all satisfyingly recounted, along with the lasting impact of one of the overdose deaths directly attributable to them. An example of what can happen when individuals, companies, and politicians place their own interests before simple ethical considerations, American Pain is a cautionary tale of the finest sort."
09/01/2015
Temple (journalism, West Virginia Univ.; The Last Lawyer) has written a propulsive prequel of sorts to Sam Quinones's Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic, which takes a macro look at how Mexican heroin has supplanted prescription painkillers as the opiate of choice. This title relates a hugely profitable Florida pain clinic that started in 2008 and collapsed in 2010 after a lengthy undercover federal investigation. It benefits greatly from the author's interviews with the principals, Derik Nolan and Chris George, who had no medical background but saw a better opportunity than construction work or selling steroids. Using trial testimony, media reports, and interviews with many of the players, Temple reconstructed in a chronological fashion the day-to-day operations of the clinic. As a former news reporter, the author does an exquisite job of weaving a simple narrative of greed and addiction into a cautionary tale. Readers should start with this book, then read Dreamland to get the rest of the story. VERDICT Highly recommended for general and true crime audiences. [Film rights have been optioned by Warner Bros.—Ed.]—Harry Charles, St. Louis
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940170867967 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tantor Audio |
| Publication date: | 11/03/2015 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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