I just finished the audiobook of American Kingpin by Nick Bilton and it was excellent.
The audiobook is rated 4.8/5 stars on audible with almost 4,000 reviews, and with good reason. The story is fascinating, the research was painstaking and the writing was excellent. It read like a thriller but with details that were strange enough that they could have only happened in real life.
American Kingpin follows the story of Ross Ulbrecht and the founding of Silk Road, the Amazon of the Dark Web, an online marketplace for buying and selling drugs, weapons and more. Ross is a perfect anti-hero who starts as an idealistic libertarian looking to change the world for the better. Much like Heisenberg from Ross’s favorite show Breaking Bad, Ross spirals into a drug kingpin, soon ordering hits on disloyal employees.
The book also chronicles the tale of the FBI, HSI and IRS agents who track Ulbrecht down and arrest them. These guys are all characters, too, from a college dropout TSA agent who rises to help crack the case, to an eccentric IRS agent who reads everything three times. The charm of the characters and ultimately the whole book are the homey details, painstakingly researched and rendered with empathy and affection on the page.
Strongly recommend this audiobook for anyone interested in True Crime, Technology, the Dark Web or simply a good story.