Silk Road

Eileen Ormsby

Language: English

Publisher: Macmillan Australia

Published: Nov 1, 2014

Description:

It was the 'eBay of drugs', a billion dollar empire. Behind it was the FBI's Most Wanted Man, a mysterious crime czar dubbed 'Dread Pirate Roberts'. 

SILK ROAD lay at the heart of the 'Dark Web' - a parallel internet of porn, guns, assassins and drugs. Lots of drugs. With the click of a button LSD, heroin, meth, coke, any illegal drug imaginable, would wing its way by regular post from any dealer to any user in the world. How was this online drug cartel even possible? And who was the mastermind all its low roads led to? 

This is the incredible true story of Silk Road's rise and fall, told with unparalleled insight into the main players - including alleged founder and kingpin Dread Pirate Roberts himself - by lawyer and investigative journalist Eileen Ormsby. A stunning crime story with a truth that explodes off the page.

Review

"Ormsby's investigative journalism shines as she provides a very thorough account of Ulbricbht's rise and fall" - Penthouse Magazine

"Ormsby has delivered a triumph of narrative journalism, meticulously researched and gripping, a skilful mergence of tech jargon with human drama." - The Saturday Paper

"Through her clear rendering of the facts, Ormsby makes the intricacies of the technology involved accessible to even the most technophobic of readers. The tone is conversational and friendly while the content is intriguing and increasingly dark. In her quest to uncover the mystery behind the enigmatic DPR she uncovers a story of subterfuge, replete with conspiracy theories and hidden identities, that is rich with anecdotes." - Newtown Review of Books

"The book is a fascinating expose of this particular aspect of the "dark web" of internet dealings and its subsequent unravelling." - Sydney Morning Herald

"Ormsby is a great writer, giving us gripping accounts from the people who actually used 'Silk Road' to paint an accurate picture of how the website was created, run, and ultimately fell....Silk Road is easily one of the best books I've read this year."  - The Library NZ

"Silk Road is one of the more readable and gripping true crime books of recent times. It is not just Ormsby's knowledge of the brief but spectacular rise and fall of Silk Road that makes for compelling reading, but also the ordering of the material so that the reader has the sense of being educated in the technical and legal background to an astonishing criminal enterprise." - The Australian