Bakersfield, it seems, has all the key ingredients to be the new epicenter of California noir.
It’s a city suspended in time as other metros have mowed their landmarks down and moved on . It’s cast in a permanent daytime haze from generations of industrial equipment laboring and pesticides circulating beneath the unforgiving Valley sun. At dusk, the shadows grow curious and meander through the various alleyways and duck into cracks and corners of the downtown to cast a foreboding feel over its center.
But when things do go sideways, which is strikingly often, Bakersfield also has its own chronicler of mishaps, mysteries and misfortunes at the ready…