Author:
Narrator: Paul Boehmer
Format: Unabridged-MP3
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: Jun 2012
Genre: True Crime
Retail Price: $29.99
Discs: 2
n the summer of 1987, Johnny Boone set out to grow andharvest one of the greatest outdoor marijuana crops in modern times. In doingso, he set into motion a series of events that defined him and his associatesas the largest homegrown marijuana syndicate in American history, also known asthe Cornbread Mafia.Author James Higdon-whose relationship with Johnny Boone,currently a federal fugitive, made him the first journalist subpoenaed underthe Obama administration-takes listeners back to the 1970s and '80s and theclash between federal and local law enforcement and a band of Kentucky farmerswith moonshine and pride in their bloodlines. By 1989 the task force assignedto take down men like Johnny Boone had arrested sixty-nine men and one woman frombusts on twenty-nine farms in ten states, and seized two hundred tons of pot.Of the seventy individuals arrested, zero talked. How it all went down is atale of Mafia-style storylines emanating from the Bluegrass State, andpopulated by Vietnam veterans and weed-loving characters caught up inTarantino-level violence and heart-breaking altruism.Accompanied by a backdrop of rock-and-roll andrhythm-and-blues, this work of dogged investigative journalism and history istold by Higdon in action-packed, colorful and riveting detail.