Snitch World

“The Miata jumped the curb and sheared off a light pole. The impact deployed the airbags, but Chainbang was ready. He knifed Klinger’s before it was fully inflated and his own before it could crush the glass pipe in his breast pocket. The six-inch blade went through the nylon like a pit bull through a kindergarten.” Snitch World takes place in a San Francisco of menacing technology, where the old cons come up short and the crimes of the gritty night have morphed into slick capers pulled off by the glow of a smartphone. Klinger hangs out at the Hawse Hole, a sordid dive even by Tenderloin standards. All he really wants is enough cash to buy a cup of coffee, some cigarettes, a bug-free hotel room. The simple act of picking a carefully targeted mark’s pocket initiates a series of events that get stranger and more dangerous by the moment. Jim Nisbet, with his characteristic humor and brilliant prose, creates a world where trust, and even cash, are the avatars of a loser’s game. This is Snitch World, where a nine-dollar app can be as deadly as a dirty needle. Also included is a recent interview with Jim Nisbet, in conversation with Patrick Marks, owner and publisher of San Francisco’s The Green Arcade, talking about writing, books, and technology.