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A review by tetcha
American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road by Nick Bilton
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
4.0
I did enjoy the stranger than fiction story though a few times it felt a little unnecessarily drawn out. Both Ross Ulbricht himself and all of the law enforcement involved were exasperating and just left me wondering why, why why...
Why bother choosing to live a life of crime if you aren't going to enjoy the rewards earned while doing it? I felt like Ross seemed miserable or afraid for the majority of that 3 year period, cut off from any real relationships, living in a sad little apartment or with roommates, not spending any of his money he made or celebrating his hard work... lol what was the point?
I also found the inter-agency investigations at war with each other (even different locations within a single agency) instead of working together to be infuriating... what a waste of resources and tax payer money. How often do investigations take months or years longer than they should all because each agent wants to be the hero and solve it all on their own.
Despite my feelings toward it, the story was a page-turner and it definitely led me down a rabbit hole looking for even more info, news stories and any post-story comments from Ross himself since then.
P.S. I totally admit I was rooting for the IRS Agent all the way through to be the one to catch Ross on a dumb mistake that no one else paid attention too lol
Why bother choosing to live a life of crime if you aren't going to enjoy the rewards earned while doing it? I felt like Ross seemed miserable or afraid for the majority of that 3 year period, cut off from any real relationships, living in a sad little apartment or with roommates, not spending any of his money he made or celebrating his hard work... lol what was the point?
I also found the inter-agency investigations at war with each other (even different locations within a single agency) instead of working together to be infuriating... what a waste of resources and tax payer money. How often do investigations take months or years longer than they should all because each agent wants to be the hero and solve it all on their own.
Despite my feelings toward it, the story was a page-turner and it definitely led me down a rabbit hole looking for even more info, news stories and any post-story comments from Ross himself since then.
P.S. I totally admit I was rooting for the IRS Agent all the way through to be the one to catch Ross on a dumb mistake that no one else paid attention too lol