A Killing in Cannabis

“An exhilarating, deeply reported true-crime murder mystery and love story that moves like a Netflix thriller.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A deeply reported literary nonfiction masterpiece.”—Wright Thompson
Santa Cruz is one of the country’s surf meccas and a favored getaway of the Silicon Valley elite. For decades, marijuana has been cultivated, consumed, and trafficked in these mountains, one of the most important regions in the country for the crop. It's where Ken Kelsey threw his wild parties, where back-to-the-land types came to live off the grid, and where Tushar Atre, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, was found brutally murdered.

Charismatic, ambitious, arrogant, and rich, Atre was the leader among a clutch of tech execs with a voracious appetite for risk, work, and money, riding waves at dawn and then putting in fourteen-hour days. When he met Rachel Lynch, a maverick cannabis grower and mover of product, he had a vision of how their lives could come together in business and in love. Atre sought to disrupt the newly legal cannabis trade by funding a start-up with black-market capital. This illegal pursuit would entangle him with an array of colorful and dangerous characters, many of whom had compelling reasons to want him dead. 

Award-winning journalist Scott Eden’s panoramic investigation exposes the symbiotic relationship between the legal weed business and its shadowy, black-market counterpart as the prohibition era ends and the gold rush takes off. It is a story of love, greed, and betrayal, set in a world where visionaries, hippies, masters of the universe, and stone-cold killers are all stakeholders, eager to exploit the power of the plant.