Grass Valley was established in 1851 as Centreville and renamed Grass Valley the following year. Grass Valley is about an hour's drive northeast of Sacramento and, as of the 2010 US Census, has a population of 12,860.

Somewhat of a magnet for interesting people, artists such as Terry Riley, Gary Snyder, Meri St. Mary, Monte Cazazza, Joanna Newsom, and Supertramp bassist Roger Hodgson call it home, to name a few. If that is not enough to raise your interest, then the contents of this book will surely display how colorful Grass Valley is.

Preface: “The Police Blotter, blotter of the stains of the community, the county-wide water-cooler of the improbable, the desperate and the bizarre. The laundry line of the unexplained, agony column of the indigent, gossip sensationalist and sacred confessor all at once, usually over coffee in the morning. A place to catch up, a place where those who have rejected society inbounds meet those who enforce those bounds. Like the executioner once kept the rabble in line, the blotter exposes our neighbors as they expose themselves. The vicarious allure of ridicule, finding out why the police lights were shining on the apartment, why that guy had a black eye, where those dudes on those ATVs were going- and why did they have that mannequin? No questions, “Just the facts ma’am.” Did you see that too? I totally heard that and was like, “What is that?” The blotter doesn’t answer, it just says. Like a statue from Easter Island with a mullet, it gazes back at the county with it’s newspaper gray face and speaks the truth about the people below: they’ve had too much to drink, they’re getting high, they got guns. Retirees, Ridgies and Rednecks; Crits, Clampers and Christians; hicks, hipsters and healers; Juggaloes, townies, yoga moms, emo kids, gaze into the looking glass of your greatest foibles and remember the peak just before it all went to shit.

- Chris Streng”