Quick Synopsis

From a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter from the smallest newspaper ever to win the prize in the investigative reporting category, an urgent, riveting, and heartbreaking investigation into the corporate greed that pumped millions of pain pills into small Appalachian towns, decimating communities.

Publisher’s Synopsis

Death in Mud Lick is the story of a pharmacy in Kermit, West Virginia, that distributed 12 million opioid pain pills in three years to a town with a population of 382 people—and of one woman, desperate for justice, after losing her brother to overdose. Debbie Preece’s fight for accountability for her brother’s death took her well beyond the Sav-Rite Pharmacy in coal country, ultimately leading to three of the biggest drug wholesalers in the country. She was joined by a crusading lawyer and by local journalist, Eric Eyre, who uncovered a massive opioid pill-dumping scandal that shook the foundation of America’s largest drug companies—and won him a Pulitzer Prize.

Part Erin Brockovich, part Spotlight, Death in Mud Lick details the clandestine meetings with whistleblowers; a court fight to unseal filings that the drug distributors tried to keep hidden, a push to secure the DEA pill-shipment data, and the fallout after Eyre’s local paper, the Gazette-Mail, the smallest newspaper ever to win a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, broke the story.

Eyre follows the opioid shipments into individual counties, pharmacies, and homes in West Virginia and explains how thousands of Appalachians got hooked on prescription drugs—resulting in the highest overdose rates in the country. But despite the tragedy, there is also hope as citizens banded together to create positive change—and won. A work of deep reporting and personal conviction, Eric Eyre’s intimate portrayal of a national public health crisis illuminates the shocking pattern of corporate greed and its repercussions for the citizens of West Virginia—and the nation—to this day.

Book Review

Death in Mud Lick is the account of the investigative journalist, Eric Eyre, who broke the story of the opioid epidemic in West Virginia and subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting. Eyre covers the sordid details of how pill dumping by drug manufacturers, wholesalers, pharmacies, and crooked doctors made West Virginia the epicenter of the opioid epidemic and how lawyers, politicians, lobbyists, and government officials were complicit and profited off the lives of their fellow citizens.

I read a fair amount of books by investigative journalists, but Death in Mud Lick was my first foray into the opioid epidemic. Because so much narrative nonfiction has been written on the subject and this book is a more recent release, I assumed it would be a gripping story to trump the others. However, I finished the audiobook disappointed.

I liked that Eyre tried to tell a comprehensive story that also focuses on those affected in the community. He weaves together the personal stories of the people of Kermit with his investigation and the dramatic legal battle against the pharmaceutical industry. This approach highlighted that what is at stake is much more than money; it is human lives and a community. But in trying to be as extensive as a book allows, Eyre struggles to create a compelling, focused narrative. Instead, the book flips between being a story about a post-coal mining small town, a struggling local paper, a courtroom drama, and a political battle. Death at Mud Lick fails to be cohesive. Consequently, there is not a unified narrative to follow that did not become lost among the names and legal battles it retells. As a result, Death in Mud Lick is a slow read that lacks a true main plot to center readers’ attentions.

In addition to lacking a cohesive storyline, Death in Mud Lick suffers from a lack of strong narrative voice and tone. Eyre retells the story in a matter-of-fact manner without much tone, as is typical in newspaper articles. However, I found it difficult to become invested when there failed to be a tone to set the atmosphere and mood. I never became caught up in the story or invested in the characters. I recognize this can be difficult to do when writing about events of the past, but I have read many examples of it done well. In the end, I decided that Eyre’s writing may not be best suited to long form journalism or at least when there is a complex story at hand with many moving parts.

Overall, I found the events retold in Death in Mud Lick interesting but did not think the book recited the, in a cohesive or compelling manner. If you are interested in the subject, I would still recommend it in print form (not audiobook). Personally, I will be looking for other books on the subject that are better written and have more of a focus on public health.

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