Killing Them Softly

Feb 23, 2013 David Langford rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"There's all kinds of reasons for things," Cogan said. "Guys get whacked for doing things, guys get whacked for not doing things, it don't matter. The only thing that matters is if you're the guy that's gonna get whacked. That's the only fuckin' thing."
-- Jackie Cogan

And that right there sums up this book. This criminal world surfaces through the characters that inhabit it and how they perceive the violent events that surround them. The entire plot hovers at the edge of the story, revealed piec...more

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Mar 17, 2013 Allan MacDonell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I only became motivated to read Boston underbelly writer George V. Higgins because a reviewer of the Brad Pitt movie Killing Them Softly couldn’t in good conscience fully recommend the film. But the critic dropped the Elmore Leonard name while lavishing good-faith praise on Higgins, the author of Cogan’s Trade, the book upon which the movie is based. Cogan’s Trade—the first of six or seven Higgins novels I hope to read—is a brutal pleasure, and the half dozen or so killings and beatings are the...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Sam Quixote rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Johnny Amato has a plan: he's going to hire a couple guys to knock over a mob poker game run by Markie Trattman. Trattman went to prison for 5 years after knocking over a different mob poker game and Amato figures that if his guys go in and do it, Trattman will get the blame again and Amato will be home free with the cash. But when the robbery goes as planned, the mob calls in its most ruthless enforcer - Jackie Cogan - who is determined to find the culprits and send a message to anyone thinking...more Johnny Amato has a plan: he's going to hire a couple guys to knock over a mob poker game run by Markie Trattman. Trattman went to prison for 5 years after knocking over a different mob poker game and Amato figures that if his guys go in and do it, Trattman will get the blame again and Amato will be home free with the cash. But when the robbery goes as planned, the mob calls in its most ruthless enforcer - Jackie Cogan - who is determined to find the culprits and send a message to anyone thinking of trying anything similar ever again.

By page 3 I was hooked. The dialogue between Amato, Frankie and Russell is simply incredible. It sounds startlingly realistic and by its sheer authenticity, it makes the story immediately involving. This is my first George Higgins novel so I wasn't sure what to expect - his writing style is basically all dialogue. About 95% of this book is dialogue and it kind of reads like a play! From the opening scene where 3 guys are sat in an office talking, the story plays out with various guys sitting around talking, telling anecdotes about women they've slept with, the quality of their home lives, stories from being in jail, previous crimes they were involved in - the list goes on, they talk about anything and everything. But the plot moves at a glacial pace and the initial thrill of the conversations wore off about halfway through, leaving me wondering why hardly anything seemed to be happening.

I'm conflicted about this book; on the one hand I'm in total admiration of George Higgins' ability to render dialogue, particularly gangster dialogue, so convincingly - and on the other, the sheer amount of dialogue just envelops the novel and stultifies the actual story. Here's the problem with the story: the reader knows who knocks over the game, and also knows Cogan knows who knocked over the game - so we spend at least 100 pages (half the book) waiting for Cogan to spring the trap, which he does only in the final 10 pages or so. For most of the book there's no narrative tension. Meanwhile the dialogue and endless anecdotes about basically anything randomly picked from the characters' lives, while realistic, don't make up for a lack of forward momentum in the story.

Higgins' use of dialogue to render character is astonishing - you understand the characters indelibly by simply reading their speeches (and they are speeches; the dialogue for each character is so extensive it's like they're taking turns lecturing at one another) you get an understanding of their background, intelligence, life story, and personality. This in itself is so rare amongst novelists that this book is worth reading for anyone interested in seeing how dialogue, when written well, can be a substitute for description or any other literary device. To give an idea of the high quality of the dialogue, most readers/writers today when asked for an example of a writer whose character speech is the best would say Elmore Leonard; the writer Elmore Leonard says wrote the best dialogue? George V. Higgins.

"Cogan's Trade" is a book where instead of descriptions of actions or settings, you get speech tics and tonal shifts and I really like that you have to pay attention to the conversation to understand what's going on in the scene; Higgins won't help you with omniscient narration so if you miss nuances then you miss the way the scene plays out. It makes a change from most prose fiction and feels like an incredibly sophisticated writing style, far more advanced than you would expect from genre fiction. But I felt the story itself lacked energy and the narrative didn't interest me enough to say that I loved the book. I thought the writing was fine, the characterisation through dialogue and the dialogue itself were exemplary but wasn't enough to sustain the novel, whose story was only so-so. Nevertheless this is an interesting kind of crime novel, one I think readers of Elmore Leonard will get a kick out of, though maybe "Cogan's Trade" isn't the best example of his work.(less)

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Oct 28, 2012 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is definitely a vintage crime novel. It’s got an old-fashioned feel to it from the very first chapter. No cell phones, no computers, no fancy hardware, just guys with guns figuring out what other guys are gonna do. In general, I like those kinds of stories and there is a lot to like about Killing Them Softly by George V. Higgins (originally titled Cogan’s Trade). I picked this up in the airport bookstore and figured it would be a good way to pass the time on the plane. (I admit it. I had 3...more This is definitely a vintage crime novel. It’s got an old-fashioned feel to it from the very first chapter. No cell phones, no computers, no fancy hardware, just guys with guns figuring out what other guys are gonna do. In general, I like those kinds of stories and there is a lot to like about Killing Them Softly by George V. Higgins (originally titled Cogan’s Trade). I picked this up in the airport bookstore and figured it would be a good way to pass the time on the plane. (I admit it. I had 3 other books in my carry-on, but this one appealed to me right off the shelf. Don’t ever let anyone tell you cover art doesn’t matter.)

The book is full of action and violence, just as a good noir crime novel should be. Johnny Amato is planning a job and he’s got a fool-proof plan. All he needs are the right guys, guys who can keep their heads and not mess it up. He enlists Frankie and Russell to rip off a mob poker game — a pretty ballsy plan, since the mob has a very long memory, but Amato has a fall-guy in mind and he thinks they can pull it off. What he doesn’t count on is Jackie Cogan — a mob enforcer who sees the subtleties that others miss. He’s not afraid to put pressure on people and he’s ruthless. Not someone you want to have after you.

I enjoyed this; there’s a good mystery, a lot of action, a couple of interesting plot twists. I found the language a bit of a slog, I have to say. It’s like it’s all in gangster-speak and you have to translate every sentence.

“‘Remember them habes we had?’ Frankie said.

“Habes? What habes? We had about nine hundred habes. Every time I turn around that monkey’s pulling out something I gotta sign. What habes?’”

Took me a few readings to figure out they were referring to writs of habeas corpus. Guess I’m not up on my old-school gangster slang.

There is also an oddity about the way they speak, repeating their words – “I’m gonna, I’m gonna go do this thing” — that everyone does in the book. Perhaps a local mannerism, but it was odd and hard on my ears as I was reading it. It’s tough when you’re enjoying the story, but the language and the style make for difficult reading. I must say that I loved some of the back-chatter — the guys talking about their wives and their money problems and their girlfriends. That made me laugh and seemed very realistic. Just the sort of thing you’d talk about, stuck in a car, waiting for a guy.

Overall, it’s a quick read and a good pick for folks who like tough guys and guns (and really, who doesn’t like tough guys and guns?). And here’s something you won’t often hear me say: the movie looks better than the book. Some books are just screaming to be movies and this is one of them. I like Brad Pitt and there’s a great cast around him in this; I could place the characters just by looking at the actors, no introductions necessary. Definitely going to be fun to watch.(less)

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Oct 24, 2012 Robin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I liked this book and am a huge fan of George V Higgins – Friends of Eddie Coyle is one of the all-time great crime novels. Ended up giving this three stars despite it's many good points – great dialogue, the bleak but believable outlook of these desperate characters, the pared-down style. It was the dialogue that, despite it verisimilitude to everyday speech, ironically struck a bum note. Higgins has the characters speak in long, perfectly idiomatic speech, so long they're like Shakespearean so...more

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Jul 14, 2012 Rob Kitchin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Cogan’s Trade is a relatively simple story consisting of just nineteen extended scenes. Each scene is largely conversational, with little in the way of action. Interestingly, Higgins simply drops the reader into conversations and then lets them try to work out what is happening – a bit like taking a seat on a bus and overhearing a conversation taking place between nearby passengers and trying to work out what is being discussed, the context, how threads intertwine, who they might be talking abou...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Anna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: four-stars, modern

At first, I didn't think I wanted to like this book: from the get-go, you find that the book consists of dialogue between two characters (three characters at most) in each chapter. Though this book was published first, this set-up had reminded me of Pulp Fiction when John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson would have conversations before a big gun blow out. Between each chapter, the reader is to assume that an event has occurred where characters have found something out. Of course, this is a crime n...more

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Nov 02, 2012 Josh rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

At first I wasn't too sure what to make of it. Heavily reliant on dialogue. Not much of a plot. At certain points you'd think it would make a great short story by getting rid of some characters and unnecessary events. Yet, there is something about the way these characters are set up that sucks you in. Higgins does give a pretty original voice to each character and it does not pull any punches with "crime talk." Think of The Wire-speak but in the 1970s in Boston. It was also interesting that the...more

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Feb 13, 2012 Max Magbee rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When a Mob-run poker game is robbed, enforcer Jackie Cogan is called in to "take care" of those responsible.

What's interesting about George V. Higgins' writing is that he tells his narrative through his character's dialogue, almost as if the reader were piecing a story together by listening to surveillance tapes. In fact, the dialogue comprises probably about ninety percent of the book, with the other ten percent allotted for the briefest of character, setting and action description. But what di...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Justin Tobin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love this novel, with its vintage, gritty crime novel feel, refreshing that there is no mention of computers, cell phones or text messages – it was published in 1974. Filled with true-to-life dialogue that is humorous and with brief descriptions of characters and scene settings, this novel can easily be made into a film script – which it was. I love the film too, which I watched prior to reading the novel, and I’ll get to that later. I began this novel on March 25, 2013 and finished it on Marc...more I love this novel, with its vintage, gritty crime novel feel, refreshing that there is no mention of computers, cell phones or text messages – it was published in 1974. Filled with true-to-life dialogue that is humorous and with brief descriptions of characters and scene settings, this novel can easily be made into a film script – which it was. I love the film too, which I watched prior to reading the novel, and I’ll get to that later. I began this novel on March 25, 2013 and finished it on March 31, 2013.

A Laundromat owner named Johnny Amato, aka Squirrel, recruits a guy named Frankie and his dog stealing-selling friend Russell to knock over a card game. They are hesitant at first, seeing the mission as suicidal, the game being run by the mob and all. Amato tells them that they will be able to do it and nobody will suspect their involvement. This is because the card game is run my Markie Trattman, who once knocked over his own game. People were scarred to go to any games after that, so a mob enforcer named Dillion ruffed Trattman up a bit to find out if he was responsible. Dillion decided Trattman was innocent, but Trattman later admitted to doing it. He wasn't punished, since people weren't afraid of playing card games anymore, and it was business as usual. There’s a theme right there: For many, it’s not about justice; it’s about money – a theme that I also found central to the film.

After Russell and Frankie rob Trattman’s game, Jackie Cogan, a mob enforcer sent by Dillion, is hired to kill those responsible for knocking over the game. The objective is so that business can get back to normal. People are once again in fear of being robbed by attending card games, and people aren’t making money. Cogan conducts his meetings with a character known only as The Driver.

Cogan has Steve and Barry Caprio, two brothers, give Trattman a “talking to” which results in Trattman being severely beaten. Meanwhile, Russell is later stealing and selling dogs with Kenny Gill, and it is later revealed that he told Kenny about the robbery. Kenny works for Dillion, so it is now revealed who really knocked off the game. Cogan is convinced that Trattman was not involved in the card game robbery, but decides he must be killed along with the others, because people think it was Trattman, and people see it as a ticket to rob games without fear of being killed.

There is a minor character called The Doctor – not mentioned if he’s an actual physician or a Ph.D. or not – who’s only mentioned in past tense about having screwed up a job and landing several people in prison. This is why Amato was reluctant at first to have Russell involved.

The character Mitch is the most comical. Cogan has him flown in to assist him on his work, but Mitch is a different person from what Cogan remembers. Shortly after landing from the airport, he drinks rapidly while talking with Cogan. He drinks – downs – his own beer as well as Cogan’s and orders several martinis. He doesn’t want anything to eat, since he ate “onna plane.” James Gandolfini was perfectly cast as Mitch in the film. He spends several days drinking and having sex with prostitutes. Convinced he will be mess up the job, Cogan eventually has a prostitute start a fight with Mitch so that the police will find out he is out of state on a felon in possession of a weapon’s charge, and arrest him.

There is an abundance of comical dialogue in this novel but some of it is disgusting. An example of disgusting dialogue would be Russell telling Frankie that if you can’t get a broad in prison to get a clean old man, and to get a dirty old man if you can’t find one. Comical dialogue examples include Russell telling Frankie that he can’t attend a meeting with Amato because he prefers to get laid; Frankie telling Russell that he’ll go back to prison if he keeps stealing dogs; Mitch asks the waiter where he had to go to get the martinis, if he got a cab somewhere to get them then bring them back, because it was too long for Mitch’s liking; Cogan tells Mitch that maybe he shouldn’t be drinking so much beer and so many martinis and Mitch responds to Cogan that he can handle it, and has been drinking “before you got out of your father’s cock;” Cogan tells The Driver that Mitch has been inside the hotel for days and is “fucking anything that jumps.”

A main theme of this novel is people needing dough, and the lengths they will go to get it. Perhaps another theme in this novel would compassion the characters have for their wives. They get upset each time they are sent away to spend years in prison, and Mitch even shows empathy, saying that he wouldn’t blame his wife if she left him if he got sent away again, and that he’d even sign the divorce papers. Cogan also makes a promise to his wife that he will use a pay phone when conducting business.

I viewed the film prior to buying this novel at Coles bookstore. After reading it, I found that the film strictly adhered to the text. It is as if the screenplay writer held the novel in hand while typing the script, reading along and typing.

I put emphasis on the word dialogue because – if I were to guess – 95 percent of the text is dialogue. I think Tarantino fans would enjoy this masterpiece.

The novel is now being marketed as Killing Them Softly, perhaps because it has been adapted into a motion picture, with “Originally published as Cogan’s Trade” on the cover. The line “I kill them softly” is never mentioned in the novel. It is like the film Glengarry Glen Ross in that there are mainly all male characters, although a female prostitute is in this novel and the film.

I highly recommend reading it, then watching the film, or even doing what I did and watching the film then reading the novel. I wasn’t familiar that it was based on a novel until after watching the film and noticing it being mentioned in the title sequence. The only significant difference would be that the film takes place during the 2008 presidential election, with election speeches being seen on televisions and heard on the radio, further putting emphasis that the so-called seedy underworld is often just as corrupt as government. Note Jackie Cogan’s words to The Driver at the end of the film.
(less)

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Dec 28, 2012 William rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When you run a business and problems pop up, you have to retain specialists to deal with them. Say you operate a restaurant and your dishwasher breaks down; you have to bring in a plumber to fix it. Your business uses computers to keep track of inventory and your server goes down? Chances are you are going to have to hire an IT expert.

So it is with organized crime: when an enterprise goes off the tracks, somebody has to fix it – particularly when the way it goes awry scares away the customers th...more

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Nov 06, 2012 Jose rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: lit-norteamericana, abandonados, negra-y-criminal

Lo siento, pero no puedo con Higgins. Los diálogos serán la leche, habrá habido un antes y un después en la novela negra de los diálogos de 'Los amigos de Eddie Coyle' y de 'Mátalos suavemente', Tarantino beberá de sus fuentes, bla bla bla... pero yo no me entero de nada. Cuando dos o tres (si son cuatro ya ni te cuento) de los matones de la novela se tiran páginas y páginas hablando de sus cosas yo ya no sé quién dice qué ni entiendo la mitad de lo que dicen. No sé si será la traducción, el mov...more

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Mar 07, 2013 Tisbutehname rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Higgins seems to be known for his realistic dialogue, but it's a shame that he uses descriptive action so little in Cogan's Trade. The scenes that he renders with character action are memorable, suspenseful, and sharp. (Maybe that's true because they are so few?)

While his dialogue is "realistic" and "authentic", the half formed, circumlocution riddled sentences can sometimes confuse. Pre-Reservoir Dogs (and by this I mean any movie documenting the banal lives of cold blooded killers/thieves) I...more

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Oct 25, 2012 Mike rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

i read this book because i read it was the source novel for the upcoming movie "killing them softly", and because I loved "the friends of eddie coyle" so much. when they say the dialogue and argot and whatnot rings true in higgins' work, they are not lying. these characters speak incredibly truly, and to great comedic effect about criminal misadventures and affairs of romance, but when it comes down to it, "cogan's trade" has so much dialogue that it stops being special and become a bit tedious....more

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Feb 18, 2013 Isi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, mystery, literary-exploration

Negrísimo, una inmersión total en el mundo de la mafia; un estilo alucinante a base únicamente de diálogos en escenas entre dos personajes cada vez.
Muy recomendable, ahora tengo ganas de ver la película y poner caras a todos estos tipos duros.

Reseña 6 Feb 2013 por Isi

Los que leéis este blog asiduamente sabéis que este no es mi género, ni mucho menos; pero bastan un par de pequeños alicientes -que hagan una peli de un libro o que un libro lo publique Asteroide-, para que capte mi atención. Y este...more

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Dec 04, 2012 Mario Hage rated it 3 of 5 stars

I regret reading this book.
As i read through it, i started to realize that this book was written in more of a movie format rather than an actual book, (there's a movie for it.

The dialogue between all the characters gives the book more of a movie type vibe. It is written in New Yorkern slang.

The author "George v. Higgins" gives the book political themes, which relate to the plot in a unique way.

The reason why I regret reading this book, is that I might have understood the way Higgins related the...more

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Jan 11, 2013 Tom rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The last time I read one of Higgins' books was about 25 years ago and reading this reminded of why it's been 25 years. His novels are extremely dialogue heavy to the extent that any progression in the narrative comes at a very slow pace. The dialogue is great, very gritty and hard-boiled but compared to similar types of author the pace of the story is pedestrian, more happens in a chapter in an Elmore Leonard book than a whole Higgins novel.
The scenario here is typical pulp fiction fare and I do...more

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Dec 29, 2012 Ben Loory rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

higgins is kind of amazing, the dialog is incredible, this book could go on for 10,000 more pages and i'd probably never put it down. it's not quite as good as his The Friends of Eddie Coyle, i think maybe because it's more soliloquies than exchanges (or maybe because the story is pretty much (exactly?) the same). i don't know, but the guy's got his own way of doing things and he's always electrifying to read.

"He made two mistakes," Cogan said. "The second mistake was making the first mistake, l...more

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Nov 13, 2012 Tanner Foley rated it 3 of 5 stars

Summary Tease
The book is set in the bad part of town in a city in the United States in the early 70’s. Two guys, Frankie and Russell, are looking for easy money and they know a guy, Amato, with a plan to knock over a underground poker game. The guys agree to do the job for the Amato and head on their way to the hotel for their big heist. They bust into the hotel room, guns drawn and rob all the players and the dealer of all their money. The total score was just over fifty thousand dollars. The p...more

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Feb 19, 2013 Christopher Ota rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My bias of this book destroyed my enjoyment its reading. Don't make the same mistake I did. Do Not Watch the 2012 film version of this book "KILLING THEM SOFTLY" starring Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini. That movie was a surprisingly bad. It ruined the book for me. The book does have some good dialogue, with really developed voices of multiple characters. But the story seems to go nowhere, and ends very abruptly. This is the 1st Higgins book I have read, and he is a great dialogue writer, but I had...more

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Mar 13, 2012 Don rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As with most of Higgins' books, this is almost entirely in dialogue; in fact, much of it consists of monologues. Higgins' stock in trade is the ordinary trials and tribulations of low-level members of Boston's organized crime circles in the early '70s. He's as interested in painting the picture as he is in moving a particular plot along. If you are particularly plot-driven you may find this and other Higgins books something less than fully satisfying. The plots are relatively bare-bones and simp...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Manel Ortiz rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Higgins podría ser un excelente autor teatral ya que, al menos en este libro, se basa sobre todo en los diálogos, tanto para ir construyendo los personajes como para desarrollar la acción de los mismos. Con esa base, la adaptación cinematográfica estaba cantada. Creo haber leído en algún sitio que Tarantino se declaraba admirador de la prosa de Higgins y no me extraña, ya que es un mundo en el que los personajes de Tarantino encajarían a la perfección. Pero en este caso no ha sido Tarantino el q...more

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Dec 08, 2012 Darrel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Terrific vintage crime novel by genre-master George V. Higgins. Perhaps not as quite as good as his classic 'The Friends Of Eddie Coyle' but every bit as vivid and believable. Each of the characters here are written so sharply and distinctly that it makes it easy for a reader to get a mind's eye picture of the action/scenes taking place. CT is a short, quick read consisting of very lively conversational dialogue between no more than two to three characters at the most in each chapter. Rich, auth...more

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Dec 13, 2012 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I admit that I often discover books from films, and this was one of them. The film in question? Killing Them Softly. I was excited to read this book because the film is set in New Orleans, but the book is actually set in good ol' Boston. Inevitably, I read the entire book with a Boston accent--I mean, how can you not? It's a crime novel about the Boston underworld. And this is old school, so forget the technology. Just tough guys and guns. The characters' dialogues are hilarious and gritty, whic...more

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Oct 23, 2012 Aramys rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Higgins, joder. Las novelas de este tío son tranquilas, como un río que baja sereno, tranquilo, pero que de vez en cuando tiene algún rápido, alguna zona de rocas, así son estas novelas, dialogo, dialogo, dialogo, y de vez en cuando se aceleran las cosas y alguien muere con muchos, muchos balazos. Los diálogos rozan la perfección, están todas las palabras en su sitio, están muy bien engrasados. Higgins hace novelas diferentes, en las que hay que entrar, con un estilo propio muy bueno. mencion es...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Tim Lockfeld rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ok, so I read this on a Kindle and as a result I had no idea when it was written. I immediately thought the author was taking a page from David Mamet; the characters would start a sentence, collect their thoughts start again, there were clever colloquial insults. The whole think had a ring of truth and as it included low level criminals it felt like American Buffalo. I also did not have a verso page to consult where it took place. 50 pages in I was thoroughly hooked but completely mystified. I s...more

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Apr 12, 2013 Matt Smith rated it 1 of 5 stars

I really didn't like this book, I found it very difficult to read. It's all conversational with no context, no set up, no character development what so ever. The story lacked feeling, a plot and a purpose. I've read a lot of books where there are conversations taking place and I can follow along easily without the author saying "he said" "she said" "he said" after every sentence. This book would have be 25 pages shorter without all that filler. I have to say, I'm still interested in seeing the m...more

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Nov 09, 2012 Mariano Hortal rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: north-american-literature, genre-noir-hardboiled-detective

Publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/policiacas-...

El otoño, con su tristeza inherente, es quizás una de esas épocas más propicias para leer cierto tipo de libros; en este caso se me antoja que las novelas negras pueden ser más que propicias para aprovecharlas en una de esas tardes lluviosas en las que tampoco apetece hacer mucho más que sentarse en un sillón, disfrutar de un buen café o infusión y, cómo no, de una buena novela policíaca.

Para ello hoy traigo tres recomendaciones de tres maestr...more Publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/policiacas-...

El otoño, con su tristeza inherente, es quizás una de esas épocas más propicias para leer cierto tipo de libros; en este caso se me antoja que las novelas negras pueden ser más que propicias para aprovecharlas en una de esas tardes lluviosas en las que tampoco apetece hacer mucho más que sentarse en un sillón, disfrutar de un buen café o infusión y, cómo no, de una buena novela policíaca.

Para ello hoy traigo tres recomendaciones de tres maestros de este género que tanto amamos, tres novelas cercanas en su aproximación al “hardboiled” pero que, por realizar esta aproximación de una manera tan distinta se complementan estupendamente.

“Mátalos suavemente” de George V. Higgins (1939-1999), el año pasado, gracias a Libros del Asteroide, tuvimos la suerte de disfrutar de la increíble “Los amigos de Eddie Coyle”, primera novela del escritor George V. Higgins, que fue una de las sorpresas policíacas del año; una novela rápida, brutal y que te dejaba muy mal cuerpo pero que tenía calidad y que se hacía adictiva de veras. Este año, aprovechando el estreno de la película homónima, hemos vuelto a gozar con la vuelta del escritor norteamericano; a pesar del hándicap que supuso una novela inicial tan aplastante, esta tercera mantiene unos niveles similares y se disfruta enormemente a pesar de la gravedad de lo que trata. Para los que no lo conozcan, este autor fue, sin lugar a dudas, fuente de inspiración para Tarantino, solo hay que ver alguno de sus diálogos: chispeantes, duros, cargados de humor y de mala leche, para darse cuenta que, el director no fue el primero en hacerlos: “Me importa un carajo. Como si lo haces con Tarzán y su puto taparrabos de leopardo, si lo convences. Me la suda. Lo único que quiero es que se haga bien. Sólo hay dos cosas que hay que tener: huevos, que según tú ese tío los tiene, y que no lo conozcan mis padroni”. Lo verdaderamente genial del escritor es que consigue mediante el diálogo caracterizar a los personajes y avanzar la trama, ahí está su maestría, no estorban, son el medio, y no abusa de ellos, de ahí lo ágil que resulta leer sus libros. Luego, eso sí, los libros son tremendamente dolorosos, es mejor leerlos en momentos de optimismo porque te pueden dejar bien hundidos. Otra maravilla más a tener en cuenta.

“Un tipo implacable” de Elmore Leonard (1925- ), el mayor problema de este coloso de las letras americanas ( y ya puestos, el de Lawrence Block) es que ha escrito tal cantidad de libros, es tan prolífico, que su gran calidad puede haberse visto diluida entre tanta producción; y esto en EE.UU. no es un problema, pero aquí, con lo difícil que es publicar a un autor de manera continua, se convierte en su mayor hándicap para vender lo que debería vender. Pero no hay que engañarse estamos ante un estilista nato que, eso sí, ofrece mucho; experimenta con todo tipo de géneros y le da juego al lector, no a la crítica. En la novela “Un tipo implacable” tenemos un clasicazo del género negro, heredera de los más grandes, con todas esas alternativas que tanto nos gustan, el hampa en su esplendor; un policía, Carl Webster, que es de un carisma apabullante, frío, implacable con los delincuentes; por el otro lado del ring, tenemos a Jack Belmont, rebelde hijo de un magnate petrolífero, aspirante a convertirse en el enemigo número uno; tenemos mujeres a lo femme fatale que son capaces de todo por sobrevivir; un periodista que documenta el enfrentamiento; subtramas que complementan la trama principal pero que no emborronan; ingredientes mezclados con sabiduría para crear otra de esas novelas que no hay que perderse, con un encuentro final, a lo O.K. Corral que demuestra el amor de Leonard por el western. ¿Hace falta decir más?

“La canción del perro” de James McClure (1951-2011), no ha tenido mucha suerte en España este escritor sudafricano. Las primeras novelas suyas que se publicaron estuvieron incluidas en la espléndida colección de novela negra que Júcar saco ya hace varios años; sin embargo, a pesar de la calidad de las obras, solo hay que recordar la excepcional “El huevo ingenioso”, no gozó de continuidad y las historias del teniente Tromp Kramer y el sargento zulú Mickey Zondi, aún en estos días, no están publicadas en su totalidad; la publicación no pasa de ser errática y cada cierto tiempo alguna editorial, preferiblemente pequeña, se atreve a intentarlo. Este es el caso de la novela que nos ocupa, editada con esmero por El reino de Cordelia, y en la que podemos vivir la que supuso la última entrega de la serie de estos peculiares detectives; ambientada como en las anteriores entregas en Sudáfrica, volvemos a disponer de una de esas tramas absorbentes, muy bien hiladas (y terminadas) donde, a pesar de la dureza de los temas que aborda, siempre está dispuesto a brindarnos momentos de humor, todo ello aderezado con pequeños apuntes que reflejan el ambiente de apartheid, el racismo que en esa época estaba más que presente en todos los estamentos sociales y que hicieron que el escritor tuviera que emigrar irremediablemente al reflejar esta situación. Este “canto del cisne” es, por otra parte, la primera novela, el encuentro entre los dos detectives, el comienzo de una amistad, una mirada audaz al final de sus historias desde el principio de sus investigaciones; es una amistad que supera cualquier racismo presente (“Zondi se rió y ambos compartieron la oscilante llama de la vela, encendieron los pitillos y aspiraron con ganas”), es imposible decidir qué historia de James McClure me gusta más. (less)

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May 11, 2010 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

All dialogue, all the time. I enjoyed every minute of it, every stitch in the born loser lives of these small-time hoods. Here's a writer who achieves authenticity in constant dialogue without resorting to phonetics, which given the action takes place in Boston is a real relief, but his ear for rhythm of real life speech is impressive. Even though it's serious business on the line, mostly these guys talk about their wives and work. He sets up jokes and plot suprises very well. I miss it already...more

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Mar 18, 2013 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"We're not the only smart guys in the world."

Tightly plotted, crude, funny, character rich, violent crime novel that "Killing Them Softly" was based on. A majority of the dialog from the book was used in the film. Like the film, the book is really more of a character study with the violence acting as a period (or exclamation point) at the end of sentences.

Book is set in the 70s. Film was updated to be set during the 2008 Presidential election and the financial crisis.

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15799487-killing-them-softly?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1360572491l/15799487.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15799487-killing-them-softly?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Killing Them Softly by George V. Higgins[/url]

Killing Them Softly (Cogan's Trade Movie Tie-in Edition)

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