The perils of the marijuana trade

The cannabis connection?

Southern California evokes many images — palm trees, sun, surf, sand … marijuana farms? Along with Mark Haskell Smith’s novel “Baked,” other new novels also describe the perils of the pot trade and have a SoCal-centric focus. These include Katie Arnoldi’s “Point Dume” (Overlook Press), whose cast of characters includes surfers and a dealer poaching pot from a giant grow-farm in the hills above Malibu, and “Savages” (Simon & Schuster), Don Winslow’s noir thriller about small-time dealers in Laguna Beach who cross paths with a deadly Mexican cartel. To read what our reviewers thought of them, go to https://www.latimes.com/books.