Down in the Valley

The rest of the country takes fleeting note of the long, flat San Joaquin Valley only during a periodic food-contamination scare—E. coli–laced spinach, say, or raw milk linked to sick children. Out tumble organically grown marijuana buds, Dust Bowl refugees who journeyed west seventy years ago to pick cotton, cow dung that may or may not be polluting the food supply, and many bunches of freshly dried raisins. Years later, after an arrested drug smuggler finally decides to talk, the author learns the mundane truth—the shooting was a random robbery gone awry.