Evan Ratliff's The Mastermind, for Atavist Magazine, is for the true lovers of longform out there. It's an investment, but a page-turning one with a depth of investigative reporting that knocks my jaw to the floor.

He was a brilliant programmer and a vicious cartel boss, who became a prized U.S. government asset.The Atavist Magazine presents a story of an elusive criminal kingpin, told in weekly installments.

An excerpt from Episode 2, "I'm Your Boss Now"

One morning in early 2009, a 26-year-old manager of an Israeli customer-relations call center named Moran Oz found himself treading water in a hail of bullets. A moment before, he’d been sitting on the deck of a small yacht, cruising just out of sight of the Philippine shoreline. Then he was in the water, the boat was pulling back around, and the three men he had thought were his boss’s business partners were standing above him. Two of them were armed, and one began firing into the ocean close to Oz. “That was for the sharks,” one said when the shooting finally stopped. “The next time will be for you.”