Guest Post: The Dark Truth Behind "Killing Instinct", by Darcia Helle

Darcia Helle has a new book out! That's always cause for a celebration. I was lucky enough to read the pre-release copy, and I couldn't put it down!

The new release is called Killing Instinct: A Michael Sykora Novel. It's the third book in her Michael Sykora series. I recommend you add it to your Kindle today.







When I read the book, I was fascinated, and if I'm being honest, a little bit terrified, by the goings-on in the dark underworld created in this book. When Darcia asked me what subject she should write about for a guest post, I suggested she tell us something about her research into this. Part of me was hoping it was entirely fictional, but I suspected that there was some truth in it. I will let Darcia explain, while I go and hide somewhere... (scary stuff)






Guest Post:


When I say the word Tor, what comes to mind? For me, it sparked the image of a comic book hero. I saw a cartoon character with big muscles and an intense expression. Maybe he’s wearing animal skin and holding a club, like a caveman. I could also place him in the future, holding a laser gun and wearing a fancy suit of thin armor with hidden weapons. Either way, the real Tor was not at all what I expected.

I stumbled upon the word several years ago while reading an article in The Atlantic. Or was it Rolling Stone? Whichever. That’s not the important detail here.

Tor is an open network you can download for your computer, which you then use as your web browser. It’s free. It’s confidential. It’s hidden. And it’s completely anonymous. In fact, the tag line Tor uses on their site is “Anonymity Online”.

These are some of the benefits listed on Tor’s website:

Tor's hidden services let users publish web sites and other services without needing to reveal the location of the site.
Individuals also use Tor for socially sensitive communication: chat rooms and web forums for rape and abuse survivors, or people with illnesses.
Nobody would be able to determine who was offering the site, and nobody who offered the site would know who was posting to it.

What Tor doesn’t advertise is the sordid side of this anonymity. Rape abuse survivors might use Tor to communicate, but so do rapists. So do drug dealers. And killers. You get the idea, right? Keeping websites off the grid means no one knows who or where these people are. It means sociopaths can connect and trade stories online, and the cops have no way to find them.

I’d had a vague sense of an Internet underground, but reading about Tor really flipped on the switch for me. My mind being a dark, twisted place means that switch didn’t shine light, it prompted ideas. That’s when the storyline for Killing Instinct was born.

Further exploration taught me about bitcoins. This isn’t change we carry around in our pockets; nor are they coins we use in a gambling casino. Bitcoins are digital currency. When used correctly, the transactions are completely untraceable. Anonymous. Want to buy designer drugs or hire a hit man? Log onto the Internet with Tor and pay with bitcoins. No one will know who you are.

This all led me to a place called Silk Road Marketplace, a website on Tor that sells everything you won’t find on Amazon. Silk Road was known for their designer drugs; a kind of candy store for drug addicts. Dig deeper and you’d find college acceptance papers forged so well they’ll fool the college. You’d also find prostitutes and hired killers.

All this gave me the ideal setting for some seriously disturbed characters.
Just a few weeks ago, I read that Silk Road Marketplace was shut down. No, the cops didn’t manage that. The site’s administrators shut the site down because they were being blackmailed by some unknown person looking for easy money. Silk Road’s administrators have offered a $5,000 reward to anyone with information on their extortionist’s identity. Kind of funny, in a way. It’s like the Old West has moved over to the Internet.

Given what I’ve learned, I doubt Silk Road has completely shut down. They’ve just changed their name and moved to a different dark corner of the Internet. I guess, in that way, they’re a bit like the drug dealers hanging out on city corners.

While Killing Instinct is fiction, the story could easily be playing out somewhere at this very moment. And that, for me, is the scariest part of it all.

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You can purchase Killing Instinct at all good retailers. Here are the main Amazon links:

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Instinc...

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Killing-Insti...