Overlook is remedying that with this paperback- the first of nine publications that will make up a Nisbet revolution. It's about as noir as you can get. In a bleak Texas prison Royce, an alcoholic doctor administers Bobby Mencken's last "high," convinced that the convicted killer was innocent. When Royce's marriage crumbles he takes off for Dallas to search for the real killer. Of Nisbet, Germany's Die Welt wrote, "Neither Norman Mailer nor Truman Capote has in their writing been able to produce such an intensity as Nisbet has achieved." With sharp humor and a poet's ear for language, Nisbet's world may be bleak, but it is frighteningly real. Overlook is proud to bring him to a new generation of readers.
One such night, he finds himself sharing an otherwise deserted bar with a green-eyed woman. Three days later, Stanley wakes to find himself zipped into a sleeping bag, left for dead. He's missing a kidney, and a doctor kindly informs him that there's something wrong--fatally wrong--with his remaining kidney. So Stanley Ahearn finds himself on the street with a new perspective. If he wants revenge, he has to find the woman with the green eyes. If he wants to live, he has to find himself a new kidney. Gritty, dark, and utterly addictive, Prelude to a Scream is Jim Nisbet at his absolute best.
Resigning himself to the doldrums of middle age, the only thing Curly Watkins has left of his former life as a punk rocker is a guitar and a tattoo of an octopus on his head. But his quiet new life quickly evaporates when old vices come back to haunt him, leading to a newfound hell of drugs, drink, and murder.
“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.
The streets of San Francisco ooze with danger, sex, poets, and technology in this hard-boiled mystery, creating a story that is at turns hilarious, thrilling, and obscene. Set in the 1980s, this is the tale of an idealistic and angst-ridden writer who struggles with day-to-day responsibilities such as paying his rent on time. Exploring ways to exploit technology, the writer flirts with hacking, while dealing with a world of bars, bordellos, and the AIDS virus. When the writer learns the passwords to the inner workings of the publishing industry's digital realm, he finds himself facing dangers from unexpected places.
Jim Nisbet is a cult favorite in Europe and it's easy to see why. He's "a lot more than just good . . . his style has overtones of Walker Percy's smooth southern satin, but his characters--losers, grifters, con men--hark back to the days of James M. Cain's twisted images of morality," writes the Toronto Globe-Mail. In the tradition of Jim Thompson and Damon Runyon, Jim Nisbet is too good to miss and Windward Passage is a masterpiece that raises the bar even for a master like Nisbet. In the parallel near-future, a ship named for a jellyfish sinks into the Caribbean with its captain chained to the mast. Left behind is a logbook missing ten pages, presidential DNA hidden in a brick of smuggled cocaine, and a nearly- completed novel. Tipsy, the dead sailor's sister, and Red Means, his erstwhile employer, travel from San Francisco to the Caribbean and back as they attempt to unravel a mystery that rapidly widens from death at sea to international conspiracy. With verve and humor to match the Illuminati Trilogy, Nisbet has fashioned an engaging facsimile of our modern world, albeit with snappier dialogue, amped-up technology, and even more clearly stated political prejudices. "Neither Norman Mailer nor Truman Capote has in their writing been able to produce such an intensity as Nisbet has achieved," writes Germany's Die Welt. Pick up Windward Passageand see why.
A Vietnam vet and an innocent young woman get tangled up in a web of deadly deceit in this crime novel by “one of the finest masters of noir” (Ken Bruen). Mattie has lived in Dip for nearly her whole life. As a waitress at the Dip Café, nothing escapes her eye. But then, not much of what goes on in Dip is worth noticing. That is, until a traveling salesman named Tucker Harris drifts into town. When Mattie disappears just long enough for steamy night with Tucker, she assumes it’s a mere passing fling. But when two strangers arrive at the café asking questions about her on-again-off-again boyfriend Jedidiah, Mattie begins to realize that life isn’t going back to normal. Something decidedly strange is going on—something involving Jedediah, the illegal drug trade, and that salesman Tucker . . .
Sonnets is the sixth volume of poetry by contemporary American noir novelist Jim Nisbet. His writing has been described as "Erudite and hallucinogenic; laid-back, humorous, off-beat; poetic eloquence crosscut by irony." In addition to his books of poetry, he is the author of 13 novels.
Spider's Cage sees the return of Martin Windrow, the detective first introduced to readers in The Damned Don't Die ("a super thriller" --Los Angeles Times). When Jodie O’Ryan, the country singer he adores, disappears after the death of her grandfather, a millionaire oil man, Windrow sets off on their trail. Strangers and storytellers cross his path: friendly tarantulas, a Verlaine-reading prostitute, an androgynous bodyguard, a pimp-entrepreneur-singer, a Salvadorean revolutionary, a car salesman hooked on tranquilizers, a cop who treats the common cold with cocaine cut with amphetamines ... Windrow travels from surprise to nightmare, and from body to body, up until the dark-as-night finale.
So goes the logic at the heart of Old and Cold, leading to a spree of hits that are sometimes perfectly executed, sometimes messy, set against the backdrop of San Francisco's beaches, bars, and murky darkened streets. told at breakneck speed in a bravura voice, this novel is Jim Nisbet's finest work yet, reminiscent of Jim Thompson at his best and Tarantino at his most irreverent. a tough and tender love letter to a city's underbelly, this is a shockingly funny tale of suspense that won't let you go.
Sixteen storytellers shed light on the darkness that lurks in the California city in this fun collection of crime tales. Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. With stories by: Barry Gifford, Jim Nisbet, Lexi Pandell, Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Mara Faye Lethem, Thomas Burchfield, Shanthi Sekaran, Nick Mamatas, Kimn Neilson, Jason S. Ridler, Susan Dunlap, J.M. Curet, Summer Brenner, Michael David Lukas, Aya de León, and Owen Hill. Praise for Berkeley Noir “Each story evokes the dark side of a Berkeley neighborhood and pays tribute both to the city's history as a haven for outcasts and as a literary metropolis. If you race through it, consider picking up San Francisco Noir and Oakland Noir.” —Diablo Magazine, a Top Ticket choice “In “Lucky Day,” Thomas Burchfield reveals the evil that can come when a well-meaning aide breaks his boss’s cardinal rule never to allow patrons into the library early. A worried mom from Holloway wangles her son a prized place in the Berkeley school district in Aya de León’s “Frederick Douglass Elementary.” . . . . J.M. Curet’s “Wifebeater Tank Top,” the tale with the firmest criminal pedigree, is the most violent, but its poetic language and come-from-nowhere ending make it the best.” —Kirkus Reviews “The 16 stories set in Berkeley, Calif., in this above average Akashic noir anthology offer little actual noir but a heaping helping of crime, with almost every entry featuring at least a murder or kidnapping . . . . Readers will be glad that many of these tales are fun in a way that traditional noir isn’t.” —Publishers Weekly
San Francisco truck driver Stanley Ahearn is slipped a pill by a prostitute and awakens in a park with a kidney cut out. The doctor who examines him discovers he has a kidney disease and will soon require a new kidney himself. Ahearn goes after the thieves.
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