Trail of Destruction

An obsessive true crime investigation of a bizarre and unlikely perpetrator, who’s serving the opioid epidemic’s longest term for illegal prescriptions — four life sentences Written in the tradition of I'll Be Gone in the Dark and True Crime Addict, combining Dopesick's heart rending portrayal of the epidemic's victims with Empire of Pain's examination of its perpetrators This haunting and propulsive debut follows a journalist’s lengthy relationship and years-long investigation into an old classmate of his father’s: former high school valedictorian Paul Volkman, who once seemed destined for a Nobel Prize after simultaneously earning his MD and his PhD in just four years, but is now currently serving four consecutive life sentences at federal prison in Arizona. Volkman, a graduate of the prestigious University of Chicago medical school, was the central figure in a massive “pill mill” scheme in southern Ohio that generated millions of dollars in cash. Prosecutors would ultimately link him to the overdose deaths of 13 patients, and believed his misdeeds may have led to 22 more. This groundbreaking book is based on 12 years of correspondence and interviews with Volkman—the first of which took place on the day of Volkman’s sentencing. Eil also traveled to 19 states, interviewing more than 150 people with direct knowledge of Volkman and his actions. It turns out that many pharmacists and drug companies reported Volkman, and Eil’s investigative reporting included Freedom of Information Act lawsuits that led to the release 20,000 pages of evidence that showed the government knew what Volkman was doing but did nothing to stop him. Through this one doctor’s story, an era of unfathomable tragedy is brought down to a tangible, and devastating, human scale.