"People are stupid, Davis Wolfgang Hawke thought as he stared at the nearly empty box of Swastika pendants on his desk." So begins Spam Kings, an investigative look into the shady world of email spammers and the people trying to stop them.

This compelling expose explores the shadowy world of the people responsible for today's junk-email epidemic. Investigative journalist Brian McWilliams delivers a fascinating account of the cat-and-mouse game played by spam entrepreneurs in search of easy fortunes and anti-spam activists.

McWilliams chronicles the activities of several...