Hell's Angels and fallen televangelists. Cross-country truckers and suburban mothers. Trailer parks, urban clubs, college campuses, and military battle?elds. Methamphetamine is the stimulant wiring every corner of American culture.

Like cocaine and heroin, meth was ?rst synthesized for medicinal purposes. By the 1940s, it was a wonder drug used to treat depression, hyperactivity, obesity, epilepsy, asthma, and addictions to other drugs and alcohol. But meth truly exploded years later when biker gang cooks using burners, beakers, and plastic tubes brought their expertise to remote...

Outrageous parties. Brazen drug use. Fantastical costumes. Celebrities. Wannabes. Gender-bending club kids. Pulse-pounding beats. Sinful orgies. Botched police raids. Depraved criminals. Murder.

Welcome to the decadent nineties club scene.

In 1995, journalist Frank Owen began researching a story on Special K, a designer drug that fueled the after-midnight club scene. He went to buy and sample the drug at the internationally notorious Limelight, a crumbling church converted into a Manhattan disco, where mesmerizing music, ecstatic dancers, and uninhibited sideshows attracted long...