Snitch Jacket - Softcover

Goffard, Christopher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1585679666 ISBN 13: 9781585679669

Publisher: The Overlook Press, 2008

Synopsis

Combining elements of classic noir, dark comedy, and a misfit's memoir reminiscent of Notes from the Underground, Christopher Goffard, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, brings life to the darker side of west coast counter-culture in a literary crime n

“Everyone knows that California sunshine is the world’s loneliest light,” says Benny, who inhabits an underworld of desperados and grotesques and spends much of his free time at the Greasy Tuesday, a squalid, southern California neighborhood dive teeming with local legends. One night, one of these legends walks through the door: Gus “Mad Dog” Miller, a huge, tattoo-laden Vietnam vet who sports a necklace of severed ears and whose job at the Greasy Tuesday is “to keep the riffraff out.” “But everyone's riffraff here,” Benny protests. But Benny, our morally ambiguous hero, soon finds himself transfixed by this twisted Falstaffian personality, and six months later Benny is arrested on suspicion of double murder.

About this title

About the Author:

Christopher Goffard, a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for his three-part series in the St. Petersburg Times chronicling a public defender's rookie year. Snitch Jacket, a finalist for the 2008 Edgar ® Award for Best First Novel, is Christopher Goffard's first novel. He lives with his family in southern California.

Review:

"Snitch Jacket is a great read, full of the blood and grit of true character. Sometimes hilarious, and sometimes all too disturbingly real, this book announces the arrival of a great new writer in Christopher Goffard." -- Michael Connelly

"Snitch Jacket is a wonder of sentences that sing . . . the sights and smells and fast talking are all so memorable that we can't help looking forward to what comes next from this talented writer's mind and pen." -- Sarah Weinman, Los Angeles Times

"Christopher Goffard sees Southern California with a keen eye, and he writes with an incandescent humor that is remarkable. Pull up a seat at the narrator's favorite bar--the Greasy Tuesday--and enjoy the madness going on around you." -- T. Jefferson Parker

"Goffard's prose shimmers with intelligence and humor, and he has a keen ear for telling detail. Fans of such cultish neo-noir scribes as Charlie Huston and Duane Swierczynski will be richly rewarded." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review

"In its dark vision [Snitch Jacket] would probably give Raymond Chandler night sweats . . . you won't close it until the last page." -- Gregory McNamee, St. Petersburg Times

About this edition

• Publisher: The Overlook Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1585679666
• ISBN 13: 9781585679669
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272