George V. Higgins' 'Eddie Coyle': Even Better Than True

I’ve been an admirer of George V. Higgins since I first read his crime classic The Friends of Eddie Coyle when it came out in 1972. I also enjoyed the film based on the crime novel that came out a year or so later.

So while searching the Internet for something else I was pleased to come across a piece by Howie Carr on Higgins, the great novel, the film and true crime in Boston.

Carr, the author of The Brothers Bulger: How They Terrorized and Corrupted Boston for a Quarter Century, wrote the piece in 2011 for criminalelement.com

As a kid, I was never a big fan of crime fiction–I always associated it with my Aunt Doris, smoking Pall Malls and drinking Ballantine Ale while reading Perry Mason potboilers about spurious spinsters and restless redheads.

But in 1972 I came across George V. Higgins and his first novel, The Friends of Eddie Coyle. I read something in the Boston papers about a hot new book, and pretty soon, I was driving down to the Caldor’s in Northampton, parting with (I think) $4.95 for a first edition.

I couldn’t believe how good it was. I still can’t, as a matter of fact. Suddenly I couldn’t get enough of crime fiction—as long as it was hard-boiled and as long as it was American.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2011/05/eddie-coyle-even-better-than-true 

Note: The above photo shows the late George V. Higgins on a park bench. The below photo is of Howie Carr.

You can also read an earlier post on George V. Higgins via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/08/the-late-great-underappreciated-george.html