American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal MasterMind Behind the Silk Road

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An astonishingly well-researched narrative… Bilton’s storytelling bears not so much as a trace of fat; the book he’s conjured is so sharp and bright that it can be whipped through in the airport lounge before the flight takes off.”

Astonishingly well-researched ... sharp and bright ... the definitive account of the Silk Road saga The Globe and Mail Ross sat staring at a concrete wall, frightened by where he found himself but unfazed by how long he might be in jail. He had played through this scenario a thousand times before.” I loved how the author shared Ulbricht's thought process on the daily decisions he made about the Silk Road, which was driven by his hardcore libertarian philosophy. I've definitely never thought about trying to apply a political philosophy to something like selling human organs. Regardless of whether I agreed with his arguments, Ulbricht's musings sparked my curiosity and led me on more than one internet rabbit hole of researching libertarian views.

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The inside story of WeWork and its CEO, Adam Neumann, which tells the remarkable saga of one of the most audacious, and improbable, rises and falls in American business history. Bilton’s investigation of the Silk Road is dramatic and, at times, nearly unbelievable. It puts your favorite thriller novels to shame.” I went into American Kingpin blind, putting my faith into my friend’s recommendation. I would highly recommend that you do the same. Do not Google Ross Ulbricht or the Silk Road, and do not read news articles. This allows for the storyline to be suspenseful. Plus, everything you need to know is in this extensive piece of investigative journalism. You can’t protect people from themselves. Drug enforcement is a Sisyphean task at best and at worst the attempt to interdict drugs is a colossal waste of all kinds of resources in the vain attempt to stop people from short term pleasure against longer term pain. It's a fascinating story that I will likely read again, because it very subtly makes you question your beliefs, morals and integrity as it paints you a portrait of a small idea taken to the grandest of scales and turned awry as a result of its successes.

This is a fast-paced, well-researched and documented account of the man who built the Silk Road--the infamous marketplace for selling drugs and weapons on the dark web--and it reads like a suspense thriller. Written in a narrative nonfiction style, Bilton delivers one of the most compelling true crime books I’ve listened to replete with characters tailor made for a Quentin Tarantino movie. A top nuclear scientist goes mad and takes an innocent family hostage at gunpoint, killing one and causing a massive standoff. The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.The author pieces together a vast array of data from Ulbricht’s electronic trail, chat logs, photos, social media, courtroom transcripts, and interviews with family, friends, and participants (excluding Ulbricht) to assemble this riveting story. He does not use footnotes or specifics in documenting sources but provides a summary of all resources in the Appendix and does not identify where the quoted conversations originate. The New York Times Book Review) into the criminal mind, Ann Rule has chronicled the most fascinating cases of our time in her bestselling Crime

Finally, to my earlier point of futility, just a week after the Feds shut down the silkroad imitators popped up. The Feds shut down a few of those but you can see where the story goes. Bilton was born in England, but later moved to the United States and attended Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. [1] International products have separate terms and are sold from abroad and may differ from local products including fit, age rating, and language of product, labeling, or instructions, or plugs (you may require an adapter).

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Ross Ulbricht was an Eagle Scout, a good kid, a very smart kid, who developed a strong libertarian ethos. This book is nonfiction written like fiction, which means the author has to make up dialog and even scenes in many places throughout. This is both the best and worst thing about the book, as there are many gripping sequences, but many times the dialog between characters sounds fake. However, the eventual police takedown of DPR (Dread Pirate Roberts, the moniker taken on by Ross Ulbricht) by itself justifies the fiction-like storytelling. It has a great buildup and was one of the most memorable scenes I've read in a long time. E L James revisits the world of Fifty Shades with a deeper and darker take on the love story that has enthralled millions of readers around the globe.

His libertarian ideas that nothing should be controlled by the government gave him the seed to start this project that ravelled anything ever seen in our time. I was hoping it would cover the tech in a bit more detail than I had seen in other places, but it was just a super simplified explanation that left a lot to be desired.Just the headline and subhead demonstrate the hyperbole, sensationalism and inaccuracy of this coverage: There was no clear thesis, and it was impossible to tell to what extent the author agreed with DPR's libertarianism or his more ruthless decisions. I have not read Bilton’s other books, but I definitely would give them a shot after reading American Kingpin. I found his writing easy to follow (great for audio) and containing the perfect amount of description and detail. As this book also contained technology I was unfamiliar with, I thought Bilton did an excellent job describing it for the layman. In addition, Bilton wrote the story in a way that allowed easy identification of the more minor characters every time they were discussed.