The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1971)
Eddie Coyle is a low-level Boston hood, supplying mobsters with handguns. He earned his nickname, "Fingers", after one gun deal went poorly & he had his hand slammed in a drawer, giving him an extra set of knuckles on his left hand. Once in a while the mob throws him some more lucrative work, but on the last such opportunity he was arrested in New Hampshire illegally trucking liquor. Now he faces three to five years in prison and as he says: "Well, ...I got three kids and a wife at home, and I can't afford to do no more time, you know? The kids're growing up and they go to school, and the other kids make fun of them and all. Hell, I'm almost forty-five years old."
The only way Eddie can avoid prison is to trade information & he's
soon caught in between the Feds, his gun dealer & the Mob. George V.
Higgin's debut novel (now almost thirty years old) is notable for it's
streetwise dialogue and the nearly Shakespearean sense of tragedy (well,
at least, Billy "Sonnets" Shakespeare) that surrounds Eddie.
(Reviewed:)
Grade: (A)
