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'I'm not doing dialogue because I like doing dialogue,' he once told an interviewer. 'The characters are telling you the story. I'm not telling you the story, 'they're' going to do it. If I do it right, you will get the whole story.'
    -OBIT: George V. Higgins, 59, Author Of Dialogue-Rich Crime Novels (JOHN KIFNER, 11/09/99, NY Times)


The title is ironic. Eddie Coyle has no friends. Just people he uses and people who use him. He's a low-level Boston hood--the guy for whom the term "two-bit hood" was coined--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. But 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)


Websites:

See also:

Mystery
George Higgins Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: George V. Higgins
    -George V. Higgins (Kirjasto)
    -FILMOGRAPHY: George V. Higgins (IMDB)
    -AUTHOR PAGE: George V. Higgins (Macmillan)
    -OBIT: George V. Higgins, 59, Author Of Dialogue-Rich Crime Novels (JOHN KIFNER, 11/09/99, NY Times)
    -OBIT: George V. Higgins, 59, Author of Crime Novels (ERIC PACE, November 8, 1999, NY Times)
    -OBIT: George V. Higgins (Jack Adrian, 11/10/99, Independent uk)
    -The George V. Higgins Collection (University of South Carolina)
    -Featured Author: George V. Higgins (NY Times)
    -GOOGLE BOOK: Friends of Eddie Coyle
    -ESSAY: Waiting It Out at 'The Pregnant Pilgrim' (GEORGE V. HIGGINS, 3/14/1972, NY Times)
    -ESSAY: Stupidity Isn't the Word for It (GEORGE V. HIGGINS, 4/11/74, NY Times)
    -ESSAY: But What If It Wasn't A Kidnapping? (GEORGE V. HIGGINS, 4/14/74, NY Times)
    -ESSAY: So You Want to Be A Judge? (GEORGE V. HIGGINS, 1/05/75, NY Times)
    -ESSAY: Counsel for Pats Fans (GEORGE V. HIGGINS, 1/26/86, NY Times)
    -ESSAY: Slouch Away, Yankee Fans, Boston Will Survive,/a> (GEORGE V. HIGGINS, 8/10/86, NY Times)
   
-ESSAY:
   
-ARTICLE: Cleaver Trial Off As Lawyer Leaves (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 6/15/76)
    -PROFILE: The Friends Of George V. Higgins (Five Pubs)
    -PROFILE: True Confessions?: George HigginsThe characters in the late George Higgins's literary crime novels offer a rare glimpse inside the writer's life and legal mind (David Reich, BU Bridge)
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-ARCHIVES: George V. Higgins (Harper's)
    -ARCHIVES: "george v. higgins" (Find Articles)
    -REVIEW: of Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins (Joe McGinniss, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Friends of Eddie Coyle (August West, Vintage Hardboiled Reads
    -REVIEW: of
   
-REVIEW: of THE DIGGER'S GAME By George V. Higgins (James Mills, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of COGAN'S TRADE By George V. Higgins (O.L. Bailey, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of A CITY ON A HILL By George V. Higgins (Christopher Lydon, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of THE FRIENDS OF RICHARD NIXON By George V. Higgins (Monroe H. Freeman, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of THE JUDGMENT OF DEKE HUNTER By George V. Higgins (Sheldon Frank, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Judgment of Deke Hunter (Paul Gray, TIME)
    -REVIEW: of DREAMLAND By George V. Higgins (Ivan Gold, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of A YEAR OR SO WITH EDGAR By George V. Higgins (Martin Levin, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of KENNEDY FOR THE DEFENSE By George V. Higgins (Evan Hunter, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Kennedy for the Defense (Peter Stoler, TIME)
    -REVIEW: of THE RAT ON FIRE By George V. Higgins (John Leonard, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of Rat on Fire (Michael Malone, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of THE PATRIOT GAME By George V. Higgins (Stanley Ellin, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of The Patriot Game (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of A CHOICE OF ENEMIES By George V. Higgins (Peter Andrews, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of STYLE VERSUS SUBSTANCE: Boston, Kevin White, and the Politics of Illusion. By George V. Higgins (Edwin Diamond, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of PENANCE FOR JERRY KENNEDY By George V. Higgins (Seymour Epstein, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of IMPOSTERS By George V. Higgins (Natalie Robins, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of OUTLAWS By George V. Higgins (John Gross, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of Outlaws (Marvin Seid, LA Times)
    -REVIEW: of Rat on Fire (Michael Malone, NY Times Book Review)">-REVIEW: of Outlaws (Jim Stinson, LA Times)
    -REVIEW: of WONDERFUL YEARS, WONDERFUL YEARS By George V. Higgins (David Murray, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of THE PROGRESS OF THE SEASONS: Forty Years of Baseball in Our Town. By George V. Higgins (Lawrence S. Ritter, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of TRUST By George V. Higgins (Hilma Wolitzer, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of VICTORIES By George V. Higgins (Christopher Matthews, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Victories (Josh Rubins, Entertainment weekly)
    -REVIEW: of THE MANDEVILLE TALENT By George V. Higgins (Marilyn Stasio, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of BOMBER'S LAW By George V. Higgins (Tom Nolan, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Bomber's Law (Robert Worth, Commonweal)
    -REVIEW: of SWAN BOATS AT FOUR By George V. Higgins (Carol Peace Robins, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of SANDRA NICHOLS FOUND DEAD By George V. Higgins (Scott Veale, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of A CHANGE OF GRAVITY By George V. Higgins (Vinvent Patrick, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of THE AGENT By George V. Higgins (Charles Salzberg, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of The Agent (Barcelona Review)
    -REVIEW: of The Agent (Charles Winecoff, Entertainment Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of AT END OF DAY By George V. Higgins (BRUCE DESILVA, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of At End of Day (Phoebe-Lou Adams, The Atlantic)
    -REVIEW: of At End of Day (Richard Dyer, Boston Globe)

FILM:
    -FILMOGRAPHY: George V. Higgins (IMDB)
    -INFO: Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) (IMDB)
    -FILMOGRAPHY: Peter Yates (IMDB)
    -DVD SITE: Friends of Eddie Coyle (Criterion Collection)
    -REVIEW: of Friends of Eddie Coyle (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times)
    -REVIEW: of Friends of Eddie Coyle (Richard Schickel, TIME)
    -REVIEW: of Friends of Eddie Coyle (Sam Allis, Boston Globe)
    -REVIEW: of Friends of Eddie Coyle (Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World)
    -REVIEW: of Friends of Eddie Coyle (Mystery File)
    -REVIEW: of Friends of Eddie Coyle (William Horberg)

Book-related and General Links:

    -ESSAY: A (BIG) DIG INTO THE ROOTS OF BOSTON NOIR: Private eyes, priests, and public corruption. Boston has a noir all its own and a decades-long tradition (LUKE POLING, 3/05/2021, Crime Reads)