Results Publisher "Sceptre" in Physical Illness & Disease

Every catastrophe has a beginning. For the opioid crisis in America, the seed was a drug called OxyContin. First hailed as a miracle drug for severe pain in the early 1990s, OxyContin went on to ignite a plague of addiction and death across America. Equal parts crime thriller, medical detective story and business exposé, Pain Killer is the origin story of the opioid crisis, a hard-hitting look at how a supposed wonder drug became the trigger for a national tragedy. 

John visits his ageing mother, Mary, in her nursing home by the sea, and mourns the slow fading of her mind. Hoping to shore up her receding memory, he prompts her with songs, photographs, and questions from their shared past, taking her back to the 1940s, when she was a young woman and he a child in a small Cumbrian town. But as he rekindles her memories, it is her own mother she longs for - and John finds himself delving further back, into the secrets and silences of Mary's fractured childhood, and the unsung sorrows of her thwarted yet spirited mother, Grace.

Usually, this is where we'd tell you what this book is about. But with Chris Cleave, it's a bit different. Because if you've read The Other Hand or Incendiary, you'll know that what his books are about is only part of the story - what really matters is how they make you feel. Gold is about the limits of human endurance, both physical and emotional. It will make you cry. Gold is about what drives us to succeed - and what we choose to sacrifice for success. It will make you feel glad to be alive.