DEATH IN MUD LICK A Coal Country Fight Against the Drug Companies that Delivered the Opioid Epidemic

Eric Eyre's nose for investigative journalism and conversational writing style are enhanced by narrator Michael David Axtell's energy, empathy, and appropriate tone of outrage. Why does a pharmacy in a town of 382 people in West Virginia need nine million pain pills over a two-year period? There is plenty of blame to go around for the opioid crisis, with pharmaceutical companies, over-prescribing doctors, pharmacists, politicians, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and even addicts in the mix. Writing for a small newspaper in West Virginia, Eyre uncovers another villain: the wholesale drug distributors who are transporting prescription drugs from pharmaceutical companies to pharmacies. Axtell fully inhabits Eyre's sense of injustice and maintains suspense as he and his newspaper spend years seeking records from these drug distribution companies. A.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2020]