Authors and Their Books: Glossary, footnotes, or what?

[Ken]

Looking for some input from readers or authors on how to deal with...

I'm about 10,000 words into writing a cop/crime thriller and I find I'm using some cop slang and some local gang vernacular in Spanish.

Keeping in mind this will start life as an e-book, how do I treat these? Kindle has a 'look up' feature but I doubt they have going to discern what a 'hooptie' or a gabacho is.

I'm hesitant to put the definition in the text in parentheses as it breaks up the flow of the story.

As this is an e-book, I can't really footnote the page (or I don't know how) and putting a glossary at the end or beginning is OK but I don't want the reader having to jump in and out as this distracts from the story.

Looking at some Joseph Wambaugh and he justs puts the words in without explanation. Of course, his stuff is some forty years old and a lot of the terms are known and even antiquated.

Tom Clancy throws in tons of acronyms and military terms without explanation but I'm thinking the audience has some familiarity.

What to do, what to do? Give me some ideas and I'll tell you what a 'hooptie' and a gabacho is.

[Howard]

Define through exposition, as in:

He really was his hombre, as the two had been friends since childhood.