REVIEW:

Have you ever considered how your life would be different without the internet? Mine wouldn’t resemble anything similar to my current existence. I’ve found and acquired most of the stuff that makes me “me” through a few clicks of the mouse: My dog. My home. My car. My HUSBAND. (Thanks for that last one, Match.com!)

But for diehard libertarian Ross Ulbricht, the internet of the 2010’s was still lacking. Where were the drugs? The guns? The human organs? To him, people should be able to get anything and everything on the worldwide web without government oversight or restrictions. And thus, this 20-something dude who seems like a walking version of a college freshman’s stale laundry pile created the Silk Road, essentially the Amazon of the dark web.

Nick Bilton’s 2017 expose of the clandestine site, its creator, and the team that brought them both down epitomizes the cliched line, “you can’t make this stuff up.” American Kingpin is page-turning nonfiction, from start to finish. At only 328 pages, there’s no boring fluff and filler. From the opening page when one tiny pink pill is intercepted by a US Customs and Border Protection officer inspecting the mail passing through Chicago O’Hare, to the nail-biting end that kept me up past my bedtime, this is one thrilling narrative that is truly crazier than fiction.

American Kingpin is an absolute must read for fans of true crime, reportage, and compelling stories. What a way to kick off my 2022 reading year! (Oh, and it probably goes without saying that I acquired my digital copy of it - legally - online. Thanks, internet!)

PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:

The unbelievable true story of the man who built a billion-dollar online drug empire from his bedroom — and almost got away with it.

In 2011, a twenty-six-year-old libertarian programmer named Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market: the Silk Road, a clandestine Web site hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade anything — drugs, hacking software, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons — free of the government’s watchful eye.

It wasn’t long before the media got wind of the new Web site where anyone — not just teenagers and weed dealers but terrorists and black hat hackers — could buy and sell contraband detection-free. Spurred by a public outcry, the federal government launched an epic two-year manhunt for the site’s elusive proprietor, with no leads, no witnesses, and no clear jurisdiction. All the investigators knew was that whoever was running the site called himself the Dread Pirate Roberts.

The Silk Road quickly ballooned into $1.2 billion enterprise, and Ross embraced his new role as kingpin. He enlisted a loyal crew of allies in high and low places, all as addicted to the danger and thrill of running an illegal marketplace as their customers were to the heroin they sold. Through his network he got wind of the target on his back and took drastic steps to protect himself — including ordering a hit on a former employee. As Ross made plans to disappear forever, the Feds raced against the clock to catch a man they weren’t sure even existed, searching for a needle in the haystack of the global Internet.

Drawing on exclusive access to key players and two billion digital words and images Ross left behind, Vanity Fair correspondent and New York Times bestselling author Nick Bilton offers a tale filled with twists and turns, lucky breaks and unbelievable close calls. It’s a story of the boy next door’s ambition gone criminal, spurred on by the clash between the new world of libertarian-leaning, anonymous, decentralized Web advocates and the old world of government control, order, and the rule of law. Filled with unforgettable characters and capped by an astonishing climax, American Kingpin might be dismissed as too outrageous for fiction. But it’s all too real.