The Cornbread Mafia

Summary

In the summer of 1987, Johnny Boone set out to grow and
harvest one of the greatest outdoor marijuana crops in modern times. In doing
so, he set into motion a series of events that defined him and his associates
as the largest homegrown marijuana syndicate in American history, also known as
the Cornbread Mafia.

Author James Higdon—whose relationship with Johnny Boone,
currently a federal fugitive, made him the first journalist subpoenaed under
the Obama administration—takes listeners back to the 1970s and '80s and the
clash between federal and local law enforcement and a band of Kentucky farmers
with moonshine and pride in their bloodlines. By 1989 the task force assigned
to take down men like Johnny Boone had arrested sixty-nine men and one woman from
busts 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 a
tale of Mafia-style storylines emanating from the Bluegrass State, and
populated by Vietnam veterans and weed-loving characters caught up in
Tarantino-level violence and heart-breaking altruism.

Accompanied by a backdrop of rock-and-roll and
rhythm-and-blues, this work of dogged investigative journalism and history is
told by Higdon in action-packed, colorful and riveting detail.