Patrick Radden Keefe books

Patrick Radden Keefe is an American journalist and staff writer at The New Yorker whose non-fiction books, including the bestselling Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, combine deep archival research with narrative storytelling to examine crime, corruption, and contested history.

Non-Fiction

Title Published Buy on Amazon
Chatter 2005 Buy
The Snakehead 2009 Buy
Say Nothing 2018 Buy
Empire of Pain 2021 Buy
Rogues 2022 Buy
London Falling 2026 Buy

Patrick Radden Keefe writes long. His books take years of reporting — interviews, documents, court records, letters — and compress that research into narratives that read like thrillers while staying scrupulously factual. He’s a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he developed the form across shorter pieces before applying it at book length.

Say Nothing, published in 2018, follows the 1972 abduction and murder of Jean McConville, a widowed Belfast mother of ten, into the full history of the IRA and the Troubles. It’s the book that brought Keefe to a wide general readership, and for good reason: it treats the history as alive and unresolved rather than settled. Empire of Pain arrived in 2021 and tracks the Sackler family’s role in the opioid epidemic across three generations, from the marketing of OxyContin back through earlier family members who shaped American psychiatry and advertising.

Rogues, from 2022, collects his New Yorker profiles and investigations — con artists, arms dealers, food fraud — and shows the range of stories he can apply his method to. His 2026 book London Falling continues his career-long interest in crime and the structures that enable it.


Frequently Asked Questions

How many books has Patrick Radden Keefe written?

Patrick Radden Keefe has written six books in one series.

What was Patrick Radden Keefe's first book?

Patrick Radden Keefe’s first book is Chatter, published in 2005.

What awards has Patrick Radden Keefe won?

Say Nothing, his 2018 account of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was widely named one of the best books of the year. Empire of Pain, his investigation into the Sackler family and the opioid crisis, was a number one New York Times bestseller upon publication in 2021.

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