The Friends of Eddie Coyle
ByPublisher Description
The classic novel from "America's best crime novelist" (Time), with a new introduction by Dennis Lehane
George V. Higgins's seminal crime novel is a down-and-dirty tale of thieves, mobsters, and cops on the mean streets of Boston. When small-time gunrunner Eddie Coyle is convicted on a felony, he's looking at three years in the pen--that is, unless he sells out one of his big-fish clients to the DA. But which of the many hoods, gunmen, and executioners whom he calls his friends should he send up the river? Told almost entirely in crackling dialogue by a vivid cast of lowlifes and detectives, The Friends of Eddie Coyle is one of the greatest crime novels ever written.
“The best crime novel ever written--makes The Maltese Falcon read like Nancy Drew.” -- Elmore Leonard
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities90 Reviews
nathaninlatin
Created 30 days ago
“There are video games wherein the objective is to read descriptions of objects in the environment and listen to dialogue from characters and piece together the plot.
Before those games existed, there were books.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle requires a great deal of attention to glean details such as plot, character roles, and even the identity of Eddie Coyle. It certainly has a great deal of respect for the faculties of its readers. I paid attention about three quarters as much as I should and understood about half of what was going on.
Despite this, I saw the denouement coming a mile away, perhaps from the middle of the book. Could be that’s a testament to the verisimilitude of the drama or maybe it’s simply a fairly staid plot. In any case, the uncompromisingly lean prose made it more challenging to suss out than it would have been otherwise, so I didn’t come away unchallenged.
I’m not familiar enough with crime drama to understand how influential this book was, but it’s my understanding it is fairly well respected in the genre. Perhaps it was groundbreaking. It’s certainly a nice counterbalance to excessively descriptive books that hold their readers’ hands the whole way.”Mangus Rangar
Created 3 months agobcsister
Created 4 months agoPumpkinhead
Created 4 months agoVictoria Curatolo
Created 5 months ago
About George V. Higgins
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