Nathan Lein grew up on a family farm near Oelwein, Iowa, where "stubbornness is just part of the landscape." Oelwein's once-sturdy, farm-based economy has suffered, and from 1960 to 1990, its population fell 25 percent to about 6,000. Many family-owned farms disappeared, replaced by faceless corporate farms. Returning to Oelwein in his late twenties, in 2002 Lein became assistant county attorney "with a mandate to clean up meth." In the economic vacuum created by the demise of family farms and falling wages at major employers (at Tyson meatpacking plant, to barely a third of their 1992 levels), good jobs disappeared, and methamphetamine manufacture and distribution became the only booming local enterprise, attended by increased crime, domestic abuse, and other pathologies. The situation was spiraling out of control. Reding relates how Lein and a few other local heroes determinedly fought back and reclaimed the town locals were calling Methlehem. Oelwein's story has implications for other rural areas, especially in the Midwest, West, and South, where Reding's tale should be vital cautionary reading.

Nightmarish story of methamphetamine in rural America. First synthesized in 1898, methamphetamine was long marketed legally in the United States. Despite its "anti-social" side effects, the drug was used by soldiers, truckers and others who wanted to stay alert, until the early 1980s, when bike gangs began making a purer form—crank—illegally. In this richly textured account, Reding ( The Last Cowboys at the End of the World: The Story of the Gouchos of Patagonia , 2001) traces the astonishing rise of meth use across the Midwest, focusing on Oelwein, an Iowa railroad town (pop. 6,772) that by 2005 had been "destroyed" by the drug. Wracked by poverty, unemployment and farm failures, the town's major growth industry has been meth, which can be made cheaply in bathtubs from easily available ingredients—mainly cold medications from pharmacies and anhydrous ammonia obtained from farmers. Reding vividly re-creates the despair of a place overtaken by meth—its storefronts boarded, its frequently exploding meth labs belching toxins, its streets used to manufacture meth in bottles strapped to mountain bikes, its Do Drop Inn transformed into a meeting place for addicts. Among the many memorable characters are Roland Jarvis, a 20-year addict; Dr. Clay Hallberg, a general practitioner who treats the psychological and medical devastation wrought by meth (his own drug of choice is alcohol); Nathan Lein, a prosecutor hired to clean things up; and Mayor Larry Murphy, who revitalizes downtown streets but fears for Oelwein's future. The author describes the forces that have made the Midwest ground zero for meth use, including the meat-packing industry, whose illegal workers distribute the more powerful "crystal meth" manufactured by Mexican groups. Reding also shows how pharmaceutical-industry lobbyists blocked anti-meth legislation until passage of the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005—though even that act fails to prevent meth makers from obtaining cold medications at drugstores. CVS clerks are often in cahoots with the crooks, he writes. An important report on an extremely dangerous drug and the consequences of addiction.

Using what he calls a """"live-in reporting strategy,"""" Reding's chronicle of a small-town crystal meth epidemic-about """"the death of a way of life as much as... about the birth of a drug""""-revolves around tiny Oelwein, Iowa, a 6,000-resident farming town nearly destroyed by the one-two punch of Big Agriculture modernization and skyrocketing meth production. Reding's wide cast of characters includes a family doctor, the man """"in the best possible position from which to observe the meth phenomenon""""; an addict who blew up his mother's house while cooking the stuff; and Lori Arnold (sister of actor Tom Arnold) who, as a teenager, built an extensive and wildly profitable crank empire in Ottumwa, Iowa (not once, but twice). Reding is at his best relating the bizarre, violent and disturbing stories from four years of research; heftier topics like big business and globalization, although fascinating, seem just out of Reding's weight class. A fascinating read for those with the stomach for it, Reding's unflinching look at a drug's rampage through the heartland stands out in an increasingly crowded field.