Thomas O’Malley and Douglas Graham Purdy are the authors of
Serpents in the Cold and
We Were Kings. One entry on their list of the
ten top crime novels set in Boston, as shared at
The Strand Magazine:
Friends of Eddie Coyle (1972), Digger’s Game (1973) – George V. Higgins
With his first two novels, George V. Higgins created a new type of crime fiction, a gritty blend of tragedy and comedy that pistol-whipped the genre’s tropes, and then tossed them into the dirty waters of the Charles River. These are blue-collar operas, arias sung by hoodlums, criminals, and crooked cops. It’s like the reader is sitting at a dive bar, having a few beers with desperate low lives and “regular Joes.” We readers have no choice but to listen to them complain about their wives, their kids, their mortgages, their parole officers, and their dreams of a bigger, better payday. Hard-knuckled and terse, these books are the gold standard of Boston crime. It’s noir over a cold Schlitz and a pack of Winstons, peanut shells on the floor, and the Bruins on a black-and white-television, losing another game.
Read about
another entry on the list.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle is among
Anthony Bourdain's ten favorite books,
Don Winslow's top five crime novels, and
Elmore Leonard's five most important books.
--Marshal Zeringue
