Pill City
How Two Honor Roll Students Foiled the Feds and Built a Drug Empire
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Narrated by:
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Mirron Willis
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By:
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Kevin Deutsch
About this listen
April 28, 2015, West Baltimore, Maryland: ground zero in America's Opiate Wars.
In this crime-plagued section of the city, the death of Freddie Gray has triggered the worst domestic rioting since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and created a terrifying new breed of criminal entrepreneur.
Here, as looters and arsonists lay waste to already blighted parts of Baltimore, two of the city's brightest students are helping to carry out a historic drug robbery spree - one that will flood the city with highly addictive pain pills and heroin. The teens' plan: to use their gang connections and computer programming skills to set up a high-tech drug delivery service and Dark Web marketplace. The result: the boys became America's youngest drug lords, in the process sparking bloody gang warfare and a nationwide wave of addiction and murder. Now mixing in deadly circles, Brick and Wax soon found their own lives were on the line.
In this groundbreaking work of investigative journalism, Newsday criminal justice reporter Kevin Deutsch chronicles the rise of these gangland upstarts as they help steal $100 million worth of high-powered opiates and build a national narcotics empire from scratch.
As gripping and compulsive as a thriller, Pill City takes listeners into the heat of the action as Brick and Wax outwit the FBI and DEA, as gang members like Damage and Lyric live and die by their own brutal code, as the cops battle to stop the carnage, and as a high school coach risks a bullet to get addicts into rehab. A gritty, hard-hitting story of gangland survival, Pill City will open the world's eyes to the plague of drug-related killings rocking America and reveal the deadly cost of the Baltimore riots.
©2017 Kevin Deutsch (P)2017 Blackstone AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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By: John Temple
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The Black Hand
- The Bloody Rise and Redemption of "Boxer" Enriquez, a Mexican Mob Killer
- By: Chris Blatchford
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Rene "Boxer" Enriquez grew up on the violent streets of East L.A., where gang fights, robberies, and drive-by shootings were fueled by rage, drugs, and alcohol. When he finally landed in prison - at the age of 19 - Enriquez found an organization that brought him the respect he always wanted: the near-mythic and widely feared Mexican Mafia, La Eme. What the organization saw in Enriquez was a young man who knew no fear and would kill anyone - justifiably or not - in the blink of an eye.
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Intense, brutal, and informative
- By E on 07-08-15
By: Chris Blatchford
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Once a Cop
- The Street, the Law, Two Worlds, One Man
- By: Corey Pegues
- Narrated by: Corey Pegues
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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New Jack City meets Serpico in this provocative memoir of a crack dealer-turned-decorated NYPD officer - a timely reflection on the complex relationship between the police and the communities they are meant to protect.
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A POSSIBLE GOOD BOOK RUINED BY NARRATION
- By The Louligan on 05-29-16
By: Corey Pegues
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Gaspipe
- Confessions of a Mafia Boss
- By: Philip Carlo
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, the boss of New York's Lucchese crime family, was a Mafia superstar, responsible for more than 50 murders. Currently serving 13 life sentences at a federal prison in Colorado, Casso has given journalist and New York Times best-selling author Philip Carlo the most intimate, personal look into the world of La Cosa Nostra ever seen.
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The author fails the objectivity test
- By William on 11-29-08
By: Philip Carlo
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The Beast Side
- Living (and Dying) While Black in America
- By: D. Watkins
- Narrated by: Brandon Rubin
- Length: 4 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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To many in the age of Obama, America had succeeded in "going beyond race", putting the divisions of the past behind us. And then 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot by a wannabe cop in Florida; and then 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; and then Baltimore blew up; and then gunfire shattered a prayer meeting at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Suddenly the entire country awakened to a stark fact: Young Black men are an endangered species.
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Excellent
- By Bruce Cline on 03-28-23
By: D. Watkins
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Murder City
- Ciudad Juarez and The Global Economy's New Killing Fields
- By: Charles Bowden
- Narrated by: Charles Bowden
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Charles Bowden writes, “this book is not about how the world ends but how a new world is being born.” Murder City explores this new world, focusing on the idea that Mexico is collapsing into a permanent culture of violence. Bowden focuses on Ciudad Juarez, which lies just across the Rio Grande from El Paso. Infamously known as the place where women disappear, last year alone 1,607 people were murdered, a number that is set to accelerate in 2009.
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Listen Up!
- By Roy on 04-04-10
By: Charles Bowden
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When They Call You a Terrorist
- A Black Lives Matter Memoir
- By: Patrisse Cullors, asha bandele, Angela Davis - foreword
- Narrated by: Angela Davis - foreword, Angela Davis, Patrisse Cullors
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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When They Call You a Terrorist is the essential audiobook for every conscientious American. From one of the cofounders of the Black Lives Matter movement comes a poetic audiobook memoir and reflection on humanity. Necessary and timely, Patrisse Cullors' story asks us to remember that protest in the interest of the most vulnerable comes from love.
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Everyone should listen!
- By Mary J. Bunker on 01-26-18
By: Patrisse Cullors, and others
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Girls Like Us
- Fighting for a World Where Girls Are Not for Sale, an Activist Finds Her Calling and Heals Herself
- By: Rachel Lloyd
- Narrated by: Rachel Lloyd
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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During her teens, Rachel Lloyd ended up a victim of commercial sexual exploitation. With time, through incredible resilience, and with the help of a local church community, she finally broke free of her pimp and her past and devoted herself to helping other young girls escape "the life". In Girls Like Us, Lloyd reveals the dark world of commercial sex trafficking in cinematic detail and tells the story of her groundbreaking nonprofit organization: GEMS.
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Rachel Lloyd is an Amazing Woman
- By joan m. on 01-14-22
By: Rachel Lloyd
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The Murder of Sonny Liston
- Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights
- By: Shaun Assael
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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On January 5, 1971, Sonny Liston was found dead in his home - of an apparent heroin overdose. But no one close to Liston believed that his death was accidental. Digging deep into a life that Liston tried hard to hide, Shaun Assael treats the boxer's death as a cold case. The result is a riveting whodunit that evokes a glorious and grimy era of Las Vegas.
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Great read
- By Diane Dodge on 09-14-19
By: Shaun Assael
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Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given
- By: Duane 'Dog' Chapman
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Considered by many to be the world's greatest bounty hunter, Duane "Dog" Chapman has become famous for capturing fugitives on Dog the Bounty Hunter, his number-one-rated show on A&E. But his job doesn't end when he cuffs his man - or woman. Having personally struggled against abuse, addiction, and a life of crime, Dog knows a thing or two about the path that these fugitives cuffed in the back of his car are on.
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Slow narration - I wish the author narrated more
- By HappyQuails on 02-22-11
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All Souls
- A Family Story from Southie
- By: Michael Patrick MacDonald
- Narrated by: Michael Patrick MacDonald
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The anti-busing riots of 1974 forever changed Southie, Boston's working-class Irish community, branding it as a violent, racist enclave. Michael Patrick MacDonald grew up in Southie's Old Colony housing project. He describes the way this world within a world felt to the troubled yet keenly gifted observer he was even as a child. But the threats - poverty, drugs, a shadowy gangster world - were real. All Souls is heartbreaking testimony to lives lost too early, and the story of how a place so filled with pain could still be "the best place in the world".
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this book broke me in the best way
- By anon on 02-14-23
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The Pursuit of Happyness (Abridged)
- By: Chris Gardner
- Narrated by: Andre Blake
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
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At the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.
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Very Good Story!
- By Lito Da Critic on 06-02-06
By: Chris Gardner
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The Birthday Party
- A Memoir of Survival
- By: Stanley N. Alpert
- Narrated by: Richard Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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On January 21, 1998, the night before his 38th birthday, federal prosecutor Stanley Alpert was kidnapped by a car full of gun-toting thugs. Hoping to make a large withdrawal with his ATM card, they took him, blindfolded, to a Brooklyn apartment, and improvised. All night, his captors alternately held guns to his head, threatened his family, engaged him in discussions of "gangsta" philosophy, sought his legal advice, and even offered him sexual favors from their prostitute girlfriends as a "birthday present."
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Since there haven't been any SERIOUS...
- By Douglas on 04-30-15
What listeners say about Pill City
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Joy Thomas
- 07-12-18
Good story...baaad narration ugh!
I almost didn’t listen to this book because the narrator was horrible. Enunciating every syllable in every word was super annoying. I had to tune him out to enjoy the story...but I highly recommend this book!
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- cassandra
- 11-22-17
Excellent telling
Sad story, sad that this is going on right under the nose of most citizens. This story is more accurate in describing the “opiate crisis” we are hearing about in the United States right now. This story needs to be heard by the masses so that people will be making educated decisions instead of lashing out at Pain Management patients, who are not the problem. People will respond if they understand the problem. Just like the smoking commercials of the 80s, they did and continue to have an impact. Dumping this in the laps of pain management specialists and their patients only causes more and more suicides as I’m reading every day, they don’t feel like they have a choice. When their pain medicine is taken away for an epidemic that they didn’t cause or create. . From cancer patients to chronic pain patients, it’s becoming more and more commonplace.
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- Russell
- 08-04-17
Interesting story
The book was good. I'm just still surat how people can do this to there communities and then wonder why there are no opportunities. They keep tearing stuff down and wonder why there is nothing left. It's sad.
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- Anthony
- 09-19-17
A true insight into the encrypted world
Surprisingly raw and real an amazing story!
Wonderful narrative drawing parallels between pain and pressure
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- MikeM
- 03-03-18
Excellent book for those interested in the Nations Opiate crisis
This book offers insight into the opiate drug world that includes prescription opiates and illegal opiate drugs. While extremely graphic, this book mirrors the reality. I was shocked by the devastation this book describes, all caused by opiate addiction.
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1 person found this helpful
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- N. Heuer
- 02-09-18
Just started this....
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
The narrator is really not good. At time he sounds robotic. Its hard to get passed. I started to warm up but this book started with a glossary of people and drug street names. Problem is you can't really go back to referencing it and on top of it when those drugs are referenced just a short time later the author writes "illicit drugs" What? Didn't you just tell us what they were. Anyway perhaps my opinion will change as this goes on but so far fairly unimpressed. Being from this area I thought I would really be in the story but its a bit story telling and a bit factual.
Would you recommend Pill City to your friends? Why or why not?
Maybe - Im just a little bit in to it and looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Might be a better book to read than listen to.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Mirron Willis?
Anyone.
If this book were a movie would you go see it?
Yes - actually if made in to a movie I think it might prove to be good!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Candice Morris
- 08-06-18
Fascinating and heartbreaking
Brilliantly researched and written. As heartbreaking a story as it is, I couldn't stop listening.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Dan Levinsky
- 09-29-18
Amazing story, incredible book
Controversial. Intense. Authentic. This book delivers. Hell of a read; not your average true crime book. I’d give it six stars if I could.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Evan Charlton
- 04-13-18
Incredible book
What made the experience of listening to Pill City the most enjoyable?
The quality of the research that went into this book was incredible -- we need more in-depth journalism like this.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Pill City?
I can't say because I don't want to post spoilers. But it involves a gas station.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jesse
- 03-16-18
Brutal.. Amazing journalism of a terrible truth
This sorry provides insights into the minds of those on many sides of America's drug problems. If someone in your life is dealing with opiate addiction, it may help you understand more of the bigger picture.
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1 person found this helpful