Shadow Man

In Reefer Madness (Allen Lane; 310 pages), Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser widens his scope from the burger-and-fries industry to America's "underground economy" — financial activity that goes unrecorded because it's illegal, unsavory or both. This submerged economy has ballooned over the past 30 years, to about $1 trillion, and Schlosser aims to find out why.

He concentrates on three areas: pot, migrant labor and pornography. He visits peep shows and prisons, subterranean pot farms and garbage-strewn encampments of illegal Mexican farmworkers. He introduces Reuben Sturman, founder of America's $10 billion porn industry. We meet good-natured...

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