Green Maven Directory

Sasha Meyers is at the end of her rope. She’s a reporter for the Long Beach Star, but both its quality and staff morale are at an all-time low.

Fortunately, her friend is arriving from London to help her escape the drudgery for a couple weeks of well-deserved vacation. Lured by stories of the scenic beauty of Humboldt County, they hit the road for Northern California.

They’re just looking to relax and have a good time, but at every turn they find themselves becoming more entangled in the intrigues of the town, which seems to exist in a kind of time warp. In Arcata, hippies, peace and personal freedom have found a permanent niche.

The forest of redwoods bordering Arcata is home to a fair number of the less-ambitious townspeople, as well as psychedelic mushroom patches and marijuana farms. But a plan to log the trees is in the works, and a group of activists will stop at nothing to head it off.

Twin Peaks has nothing on Arcata, Sasha discovers — where else would a death be revenged by a suicide pact? — with plots, counterplots and subplots swirling like ribbons of smoke from the region’s favorite crop.