FOLLOW THE CRYPTO

A Secret Service agent attempts to unravel a complex criminal conspiracy fueled by cryptocurrency in this novel.

A major earthquake strikes Bellingham, Washington, resulting in the collapse of a small building, which exposes an apartment filled with bundles of cash, two computers, and reams of banking records, a suspicious assemblage. The apartment’s occupant, George Kennedy, vanishes. Secret Service agent Luke Bitterman, a member of a joint task force that probes financial crimes involving cryptocurrencies, is charged with investigating the scene. He teams up with Sara Donovan of the Drug Enforcement Administration, an “IT savant.” They quickly determine that George is likely involved in money laundering and drug trafficking schemes. When George—his actual name is Roger Simpson— is finally apprehended by the authorities, Luke and Sara discover that he’s a mere cog in a much bigger criminal machine. The culprit is a “low-level dupe” who leads them to Arturo Cruz, a major heroin dealer, and a father-and-son collaboration, Harold and Samuel Parker, the former a judge close to retirement and the latter a lawyer. King delivers a believable plot driven by an artfully slow dispensation of information—layer after layer of the criminal conspiracy is gradually revealed. In addition, the author’s expertise regarding cryptocurrency and the various ways in which it services the clandestine operations of shady organizations is impressive. But King’s prose, while unfailingly lucid, is just as reliably sterile, absent any punch or verve and often weighed down by clichés. Furthermore, for a novel that revolves around the ghastly criminal underworld, the general tone of the book is incongruently earnest. Consider this line following a conversation between Luke and his boss, Neal Hanson: “Each hung up knowing that they really liked the other guy.” The plot also suffers from its longueurs, especially the long-winded depictions—often hypertechnical—of the minute details of the case. Nonetheless, this is an intelligently constructed, suspenseful drama that will grab the attention of readers who are particularly interested in the intersection of cryptocurrency and crime.

An astute exploration of the dark side of cryptocurrency.