We will meet on the third Monday of every month\, except June &\; December. This wil l be a great way to discover new and classic True Crime writing. Our title for July is \;American Kingpin by Nick Bilton.
\nFrom Amazon:
\nNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Th e unbelievable true story of the man who built a billion-dollar online dru g empire from his bedroom&mdash\;and almost got away with it
\nIn 2011\, a twenty-six-year-old libertarian progra mmer named Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market: the Silk Road\ , a clandestine Web site hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade a nything&mdash\;drugs\, hacking software\, forged passports\, counterfeit c ash\, poisons&mdash\;free of the government&rsquo\;s watchful eye.
\nIt wasn&rsquo\;t long before the media got w ind of the new Web site where anyone&mdash\;not just teenagers and weed de alers but terrorists and black hat hackers&mdash\;could buy and sell contr aband detection-free. Spurred by a public outcry\, the federal government launched an epic two-year manhunt for the site&rsquo\;s elusive proprietor \, with no leads\, no witnesses\, and no clear jurisdiction. All the inves tigators knew was that whoever was running the site called himself the Dre ad Pirate Roberts.
\nThe Silk Road quic kly ballooned into $1.2 billion enterprise\, and Ross embraced his new rol e 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 g ot wind of the target on his back and took drastic steps to protect himsel f&mdash\;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 th ey weren&rsquo\;t sure even existed\, searching for a needle in the haysta ck of the global Internet.
\nDrawing 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 ta le filled with twists and turns\, lucky breaks and unbelievable close call s. It&rsquo\;s a story of the boy next door&rsquo\;s ambition gone crimina l\, spurred on by the clash between the new world of libertarian-leaning\, anonymous\, decentralized Web advocates and the old world of government c ontrol\, order\, and the rule of law. Filled with unforgettable characters and capped by an astonishing climax\, \;American Kingpin&nbs p\;might be dismissed as too outrageous for fiction. But it&rsquo\;s all t oo real.
\nWe'll be delving into new and classic books of tr ue crime&mdash\;from murder\, to robbery\, heists\, and arson we will touc h on every aspect of humanity's darker instincts. View and print the list of books and check out WPPL's Book Discussion page for more book a nd movie clubs!
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