Review – Snitch

On the streets of Jersey City there is a simple code. You don’t talk to the cops. You don’t snitch. Period.

Andre Bolden is a college drop out. And a screw up. The best he has managed to do is a third-shift bus driving gig, which is enough to pay his rent and child support. But then trouble happens. Andre witnesses a crime on his route. And he is forced to make a choice. Keep quiet, and lose his job—if anyone finds out—or tell the police and lose his family or his life…

A player when Andre was in college, he manages to get a girl pregnant, and now he’s the parent of a 14 month old baby boy. He and his girlfriend have broken up, but now Andre realizes that Sandra was the best thing that ever happened to him. Jealous when she sees others, he causes her some very embarrassing moments. And Sandra has found ‘religion’ and Andre isn’t very sure how to take that.

Will Andre make the right decision—and what is the right decision?

SNITCH is the first book I’ve ever read by Booker T. Mattison, and it’s the first book I can ever recall reading in third person/present tense. I’m not sure I like that style combo; it kept me out of the story, and was like reading a screen script, minus the action cues.

However, the story was good, the action, the drama, and the soul-searching non-stop. Mr. Mattison is a very talented author. I was taken out of my rural environment and plucked down in the middle of a very urban area that I didn’t understand. Scenes are kept short and are in points of view ranging from our hero, Andre, to Sandra, to the bad guy, the police, etc. And some points of view are from the author’s point of view. And I absolutely do not get the last line of the book.