Book Review: "American Kingpin"

"American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road" by Nick Bilton is a masterful telling of the rise and fall of The SilkRoad, one of the first darknet markets. Great story for non-technical audiences and a great intro to the thrilling world of hacking. It's a great non-technical intro to the world of cyber forensics and investigative journalism, with amazing story telling and masterfully crafted character development. I listened to the book (read by Will Damron) on Audible at ~$15 for 12 hours. Overall I give it 6 out of 10 stars. I recommend it those nontechnical audience members as well as those who enjoy cyber story-like non-fiction. If you enjoy this kind of book, then I also suggest books such as Masters of Deception, Exploding The Phone, Spam Nation, and Kingpin. Despite having been familiar with the story of the SilkRoad, this telling was absolutely amazing, revealing details I never knew before such as corrupt undercover DEA agents, the origin behind the name Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR), or the fact DPR put hits out on those who crossed him. Overall it's captivating and engaging storytelling that keeps you on the edge of your seat. There are highly relatable characters, and really masterful character development through the story telling; aka something for everyone with no real protagonist, an unbiased telling of the story from multiple angles. The following are the chapters of the book:

Part I
Chapter 1: The Pink Pill
Chapter 2: Ross Ulbricht
Chapter 3: Julia Vie
Chapter 4: The Debate
Chapter 5: Jared's Khat
Chapter 6: The Bonfire
Chapter 7: The Silk Road
Chapter 8: Ross the Farmer
Chapter 9: Opening Day of the Silk Road
Chapter 10: What Goes Up Must Come Down
Chapter 11: The Gawker Article
Chapter 12: A Bull's-eye on My Back
Chapter 13: Julia Tells Erica
Chapter 14: What Have You Done?!
Chapter 15: Jared and the Fifty-Ton Flamingo
Chapter 16: From Austin to Australia
Part II
Chapter 17: Carl Force's Tomorrow
Chapter 18: Variety Jones and the Serpent
Chapter 19: Jared Goes Shopping
Chapter 20: The Dread Pirate Roberts
Chapter 21: Carl Force Is Born Again
Chapter 22: "O Captain, My Captain"
Chapter 23: Ross, Hanged or Home
Chapter 24: Carl, Eladio, and Nob
Chapter 25: Jared's Chicago Versus Carl's Baltimore
Chapter 26: The Mutiny
Chapter 27: A Billion Dollars?!
Chapter 28: The Aspiring Billionaire in Costa Rica
Chapter 29: Variety Jones Goes to Scotland
Chapter 30: The Armory Opens
Chapter 31: Ross Silences Julia
Part III
Chapter 32: Chris Tarbell, FBI
Chapter 33: Ross Arrives in San Francisco
Chapter 34: Chris in the Pit
Chapter 35: Batten Down the Hatches!
Chapter 36: Jared's Dead Ends
Chapter 37: A Pirate in Dominica
Chapter 38: Carl Likes DPR
Chapter 39: Kidney for Sale!
Chapter 40: The White House in Utah
Chapter 41: Curtis Is Tortured
Chapter 42: The First Murder
Chapter 43: The FBI Joins the Hunt
Chapter 44: Camping and the Ball
Part IV
Chapter 45: Gary Alford, IRS
Chapter 46: Life and Death on the Road
Chapter 47: Gary's Big Change
Chapter 48: Ross Goes Underground
Chapter 49: Carl Switches Teams
Chapter 50: A Parking Ticket on the Internet
Chapter 51: Tarbell Finds a Mistake
Chapter 52: The Fake IDs, Part One
Chapter 53: The Decortication Meeting
Chapter 54: Jared Becomes Cirrus
Chapter 55: Julia Is Saved! Hallelujah!
Chapter 56: The Fake IDs, Part Two
Chapter 57: Onward to Federal Plaza
Chapter 58: Julia Comes to San Francisco
Chapter 59: I Am God
Chapter 60: The Phone Call
Chapter 61: The Good-bye Party
Part V
Chapter 62: The Pink Sunset
Chapter 63: Carla Sophia
Chapter 64: FeLiNa
Chapter 65: Arrested
Chapter 66: The Laptop
Chapter 67: Ross Locked Ip
Chapter 68: United States of America v. Ross William Ulbricht
Chapter 69: To Catch a Pirate
Chapter 70: Sentencing
Chapter 71: The Plural of Mongoose
Chapter 72: The Museum
Chapter 73: The Others

My largest criticisms by far are the lack of technical details in the book. There is no technical explanation of Tor or Bitcoin or how these things provide the pseudo-anonymity leveraged by DPR, let alone a technical breakdown of how the SilkRoad worked in facilitating an "underground" market. In my opinion, this would have made the book better by including rich technical details of the underlying tech and hacks (like other books mentioned in it's class). Due to the lack of technical detail, a lot of the book seems flat where there could be intriguing mini-stories, such as the many technical flaws or hacks that perpetually succumbed the Silk Road. Ultimately, Ross made numerous opsec mistakes which actually ended up leading multiple agencies in the task force to getting on his trail independently. It's also incredible to see someone with little to no technical experience built out an underground emporium as advanced as the SilkRoad, but then it makes sense that's why there was so many opsec mistakes in its founding. It was also surprising that such non-technical sleuths caught DPR, but such seems to be the nature of the story. Overall, it's epic storytelling, the author invokes incredible investigative journalism, not only uncovering all kinds of little details but also building the characters of the people involved throughout the storytelling. The author used the chat logs recovered from the SilkRoad servers, records from the courtroom, social media events, and interviews with the investigators to piece together this amazing story. Finally, the following is an interview with the author discussing the book and it's entailing events in detail: