Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town Book

This is a great book. It's written in a measured, dry tone, completely avoiding the hyperbolic, irritating language that you tend to find in left-leaning books on current events. The result is that you a real-time sense of a legal disaster (and redemption) playing out. Moreover, the author is careful to allow some empathy (if not sympathy) for the local sheriff and district attorney who, even if they weren't actively involved in fabricating drug cases, were complicit after the fact.
This reminded me another great book about Texas, HG Bissinger's Friday Night Lights. Both books have these narrow ostenisble subjects but are really also about the social and cultural history of the same region. Both also suggest that each story could only be a product of a type of sadness and desperation specific to the Texas panhandle. It kind of makes me curious to visit, but only for a few hours.