Bizarro: The Surreal Saga of America's Secret War on Synthetic Drugs and the Florida Kingpins It Captured, by Jordan S. Rubin, University of California Press, 278 pages, $27.95
For the average American, the phrase "Florida drug kingpin" is more likely to evoke cocaine-slinging Cubans or meth-cooking bikers than a middle-aged science-fiction nerd who invited the police to inspect his facilities. Yet in the eyes of federal prosecutors, Charles Burton Ritchie was no less a kingpin—just smarter and less violent than the folks they were used to dealing with.
