Ya Gotta Have Friends

The late and lamented Boston writer George V. Higgins wrote nearly 30 books, most of them pretty good. But none was better than The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Picador), which is being reissued in a 40th anniversary edition with a new introduction by Dennis Lehane.

Set in Boston, Eddie Coyle, a smalltime hood, is being squeezed between hood Jimmy Scalisi, cop Foley, and, of course, his friends. Higgins was a competent plotter, but his forte was as an almost unrivaled dialogist:

Actually, I liked the old introduction by Elmore Leonard, but that is another matter entirely:

The Friends of Eddie CoyleThe Maltese Falcon

By the way there was an excellent screen adaptation of Eddie Coyle by Peter Yates with Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle. If you have never read this great story by George Higgins, you are in for a treat. And if you have read it and you revisit the novel, you are also in for a treat.