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The Friends of Eddie Coyle

4.08 of 5 stars 4.08 · rating details · 1,495 ratings · 209 reviews

Eddie Coyle works for Jimmy Scalisi, supplying him with guns for a couple of bank jobs. But a cop named Foley is on to Eddie and he's leaning on him to finger Scalisi, a gang leader with a lot to hide. And then there's Dillon-a full-time bartender and part-time contract killer--pretending to be Eddie's friend. Wheeling, dealing, chasing, and stealing--that's Eddie, and he'...more

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Published (first published 1972)

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New School of Noir

23rd out of 115 books — 67 voters

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

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18th out of 100 books — 16 voters

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Apr 23, 2012 Mariel rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: I hate it when my friends become successful

Recommended to Mariel by: when's the remake coming out? I'm so cynical!

"This life's hard, but it's harder if you're stupid."

Don't trust cops. Don't trust crooked cops especially. In his defense Serpico wasn't released yet. Maybe he didn't know any better? Don't be a sap, Mariel! There's no excuse. Eddie Coyle, known to frenemies as Eddie Fingers, is too fucking stupid to walk the streets a free man. George V. Higgins's The Friends of Eddie Coyle is watching someone get stabbed in the back that should never have been turned in the first place by all of the low life'...more "This life's hard, but it's harder if you're stupid."

Don't trust cops. Don't trust crooked cops especially. In his defense Serpico wasn't released yet. Maybe he didn't know any better? Don't be a sap, Mariel! There's no excuse. Eddie Coyle, known to frenemies as Eddie Fingers, is too fucking stupid to walk the streets a free man. George V. Higgins's The Friends of Eddie Coyle is watching someone get stabbed in the back that should never have been turned in the first place by all of the low life's that Boston had to offer. Did you know that Boston had criminals before Ben Affleck was around starring in blockbusters? Hard to believe. Don't be gullible, Mariel! Look what happened to Eddie!

Hey, maybe prison won't be so bad. If you flush the tank of your toilet enough times the water will be hot enough to cook those cup of soup things. It's just like that scene in Goodfellas when Paul Sorvino slices those pieces of garlic so perfectly. Cook the meat (don't ask me where you'll get meat) with a frayed extension cord. A fire can easily be started by sticking a pencil in an electrical socket. (The meanest thing anyone has ever told me was when I was eleven. My sister's then boyfriend told me that I would grow up to be Marge's sister on The Simpsons. "I would never like Macguyver!" I AM Macguyver, you a-hole!) You could do that standing on your head! Of course, if there are sidewalk sharks then there are sharks in the big tank too. My mom thought she made friends when she went to jail. She told it like it was Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail. "I'm Madea!" "You are not Madea," I said. "I don't get no piece?" She helped another inmate carry their tote. It was very sweet sounding. I'm sure they were all very friendly. Hey, my mom did tell me "YOU wouldn't make friends in rehab, Mariel." Only I wouldn't make friends in rehab. No one likes me! So it is possible that Eddie could make friends in jail. Maybe I'm just cynical after reading The Friends of Eddie Coyle because the hard bitten criminals he already knew weren't such nice guys. Everywhere I look there are snakes looking to turn you in for something. Maybe one of those stupid statutes they have in Florida. I have showered naked in Florida. If I had friends and an open door policy I could be in some big trouble.

The crooked cop is named Dave Foley. Because I am not stupid my favorite Kid in the Hall is Bruce. Other people I know may not be so lucky... Don't be stupid! Don't trust people with names like Little John or Big James either. Not that those people are in this book either. But you never know if someone will allow themselves to be referred to by such names. I refused my sister to call her baby Mariel because I didn't want to become Big Mariel. With good reason! Sure, they thought I was a heartless bitch. No one likes me and I don't know why. (Big James and Little John had a great thing going. They get away with everything by blaming each other. Funny, it has put a crimp in their friendship. But that's WHY they get away with everything! These are not people in this book. I won't tell you any more because someone might steal my idea for a reality tv show... You can't trust people these days...) Jackie Brown is a very '70s criminal name, isn't it? What has Eddie been doing with his time, other than toying with buying a color teevee for his lady? (She wouldn't appreciate it. Eddie can't do ANYTHING right.) Hasn't he seen Quentin Tarantino's film that came out decades later? Sheeeesh. What an idiot.

I pretty much just wanted to say that Eddie is so stupid that it is hard to feel sorry for him when he gets screwed over so badly by his so-called element. Peter Yates made a film version in 1973 starring Robert Mitchum as Eddie. I can't believe I haven't seen this. (I like Robert Mitchum when he's not getting sand in his ass crack.) Former friends of mine claim that I have seen every movie ever made. This is a lie! (That's one reason why I am not friends with them anymore. They went around spreading lies about me like that I am some kind of pale freak that stays inside all day reading or watching movies and showering in the nude.) The 1970s is still a sort of blind spot for me. I wonder if the movie might be just a bit better. Don't get me wrong (stop putting words in my mouth!), this is a great book. But I think Eddie would benefit if you could SEE how the wheels don't turn in his head. Watch the time between what people say and how he takes for granted that everyone is not just like him i.e. trying to beat a prison rap by trying to find someone else to turn in. How a snake can't slither fast enough in a snake pit, you know? The best thing about the book is watching the double faces on the slick words that comes out of everyone but Eddie's mouths. Eddie's mouth is lies that he is too stupid not to believe himself.

"Don't take it so hard. Some of us die, the rest of us get older, new guys come along, old guys disappear. It changes every day."
"It's hard to notice, though," Clark said.
"It is," the prosecutor said, "it certainly is."

I like how Higgins wrote about people by what they looked like. The stocky guy. They could be train car mustaches and tip toeing stripes hauling their own ball and chains behind them until they can't move lightly enough. I do find it really hard to accept how hard it is not to notice, too. Watch your back. Great book. The criminal world is faces just like that and if you forget what you're seeing is a mask that serves the underneath... Well, you'll probably end up like Eddie, or dead, anyway. Not that he wouldn't have done the exact same thing. I didn't forget what he was like, either.(less)

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Feb 17, 2013 Megan Baxter rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a solid crime novel, in which suspicion is normal, and nothing is glamourous. It takes place mostly, but not entirely, in dialogue, which is amazingly well written.

As one might expect from a novel about the criminal underworld, no one can be trusted, not the people you don't trust, and certainly not the people you do. Everyone is out for themselves, and Eddie Coyle is smack in the middle of it.

Eddie Coyle has been convicted of a liquor heist, but not sentenced, so t...more

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Feb 10, 2013 Mike Mitchell rated it 5 of 5 stars

Dialogue so realistic, you could be there!
A classic novel that I had to read, as a new novelist (my latest: Deadly Intrigue). I read this book because I’d seen it referred to so often by other writers, in terms of the skillful use of dialogue. Elmore Leonard considered it the best crime novel ever written. I wasn't disappointed.
It's a short book (50,000 words) and the pace starts gradually, building realistic scenes and characters in the Boston underworld. At that early stage, you have no idea o...more

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Nov 08, 2012 Roy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Oh, Eddie Coyle, we hardly knew you.

Eddie "Fingers" Coyle is a small fish in a dangerous pond. He's facing time for a liquor heist gone wrong, and looking for a way out. As the expression says, there's no honor among thieves, and Coyle is no exception.

Higgins crafts a complex web of connections between the characters in Eddie Coyle. Characters are frequently introduced or referred to by descriptions, rather than names, and it's pretty far into the book before Eddie's name is finally attached t...more

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Jun 23, 2012 Sincere W. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you couldn't guess from the title, this book revolves around a man by the name of Eddie Coyle. Eddie is a small time crook that makes his living from thievery and gunrunning. This particular line of work hasn't been terribly bad for him, and I reckon the first 40-odd years of his life were pretty humdrum, the scrapes and bruises of crime life notwithstanding.

But then Eddie gets arrested for attempting to transport stolen liquor across state lines. He's been to jail before and doesn't want to...more

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Nov 16, 2011 Eric rated it 3 of 5 stars

Looking at this website, or my reviews on goodreads.com, you’d be correct in thinking The Friends of Eddie Coyle isn’t something I’d normally read. In fact my wife is to blame responsible.

She grew up in South Boston, so we were curious about an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s (@noreseravations) Travel Channel show “No Reservations” that took place in Boston. The episode focused on the tougher, rougher side of Boston, and Bourdain talked about his obsession: The Friends of Eddie Coyle. My wife, bei...more Looking at this website, or my reviews on goodreads.com, you’d be correct in thinking The Friends of Eddie Coyle isn’t something I’d normally read. In fact my wife is to blame responsible.

She grew up in South Boston, so we were curious about an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s (@noreseravations) Travel Channel show “No Reservations” that took place in Boston. The episode focused on the tougher, rougher side of Boston, and Bourdain talked about his obsession: The Friends of Eddie Coyle. My wife, being a fan of crime novels, decided to pick it up.

Sorry, Anthony, but she wasn’t a fan. As she put it, “I like crime-solving novels, not novels that are just about criminals.” When she put it down, I picked it up. It is less than 200 pages, so I figure I’d give it a read. I liked it, but I can see why she didn’t.

Originally written in 1970 (and later turned into a movie), Coyle is about criminals, almost exclusively. Mostly small-time crooks hustling to survive. Eddie Coyle is a gun runner who is facing sentencing in a few weeks. While still living a life of crime, Eddie is also talking to the cops, deciding who to rat out in exchange for his freedom. See, Eddie doesn’t have any friends. He’s surrounded by criminals, each doing the same calculus that Eddie is doing. It’s a rough, gritty world.

What struck me most about the novel is that it’s written nearly entirely using dialog. Each chapter is basically a conversation between crooks or a crook and a cop. But author George V. Higgins isn’t always immediately clear as to who is having the conversation. As one might expect in a novel about gangsters, Higgins uses nicknames. But they are not the outlandish things you might expect–no “Jimmy the Squid” or something like that here. Instead, for example, when three criminals are working together, the one who talks is simply referred to as “the spokesman,” and another criminal is sometimes referred to as “the stout one.” Higgins uses this technique to slowly reveal the Venn diagrams that make up the Boston underworld. As the novel progresses, the overlapping plans and people become clearer, leading up to one heckuva climax. But it’s not very user friendly. There were a couple of times I had to go back and re-read a couple passages to confirm my suspicions about who was who. My wife was flat out not a fan of this technique.

I can see why Bourdain might obsess over it. There is a lot of subtlety at play in Coyle that would reward re-reading. I didn’t come away with a new obsession, but I liked it. As a reader, I was engaged, and as a writer, it serves as a fantastic model of what dialog can do not only to advance the plot, but also reveal character. Check it out if you’d like to try something different too.(less)

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Nov 08, 2011 Ashley rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Friends of Eddie Coyle, by George Higgens, is an fantastic current-day representation of a crime novel. It has the feel of a classic Mafia drama, but is set in contemporary times. The story features a character named Eddie, who is certain to be sentenced to serve time in a federal prison. Eddie wants to do as much as possible to get out of his fate, using the remaining thoughts of leaving his wife and children alone as motivation. He is incased by people he knows, offering him deals that wi...more

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Sep 22, 2011 Patrick McCoy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, crime-noir

Picador just came out with a 40th anniversary edition (1970) of George V. Higgins’ classic crime novel, The Friends of Eddie Coyle. It is an extremely entertaining novel as it depicts the petty criminals, gangsters, and cops who pursue them in the Boston area. The strength of the novel lies in the great dialogue that captures the Boston accent, rhythm, and cadence of this working class stiffs. It is evident that Quentin Tarantino was fan of the book (and or film) as one of Eddie’s friends, a gun...more

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Apr 20, 2011 Jeremy S. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Writer, eater, traveler, Antony Bourdain has called this the single greatest crime novel written in the English language. That is quite a statement and after reading this, I can definitely see why he would say that.

While I'm not 100% sure I would anoint it the greatest of all time, it is certainly in the running. When you read the book, you immediately think of all the classic gangster movies from the past 30+ years. The sharp suits, the gold chains, jump suits, cars and of course guns. This bo...more

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Dec 10, 2010 J.j. Wylie rated it 5 of 5 stars

I begin with an admission: I saw the movie first, when I was in college. And when I saw it, I fell in love. So now I show it to friends of mine as a kind of test -- as in, if they don't like the movie we can still be friends, but they better not ask me for a favor. If they like the movie, then we're family. It's crazy, I know.

Then, after college, I read the book, which changed me even more. Because as good as the movie still is, the book is even better. And, weirdly enough, the difference betwee...more

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Sep 15, 2010 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars

The first five - star book this year for me. It was surprisingly hard to get a copy - I don't know what the print status of this book is.

What I think is the most compelling part about this book is the narration. This book reads like the transcript summary of a Grand Jury proceeding. The narrative consists, with a few exceptions, of the conversations and observable actions of the characters. Rarely does the narrator speculate as to any of the characters' hidden motivations or thoughts, but every...more

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Jun 13, 2010 Hood rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bound: SunPost Weekly June 3, 2010
http://bit.ly/8Y8g5x
When Badass Books Become Kickass Flicks

The Friends of Eddie Coyle
(Picador $14)
To watch Robert Mitchum in this seminal ‘70s flick is to see defeat personified. Mitch plays Eddie “Fingers” Coyle, so nick-named because he’s got an extra set of knuckles on his right fist, the result of it being placed in a desk drawer and broken by some men whose pal got popped with a bad gun he’d sold him. Fingers is down and out and he knows it. Nevertheless he...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Tfitoby rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: black-as-night, hrf-keating-100

"The best crime novel ever written." - Elmore Leonard

"What I can't get over is that so good a first novel was written by the fuzz." - Norman Mailer

George Higgins was an assistant U.S. Attorney for Massachusets when he set out to document the new reality of hardboiled criminal life in and around Boston with the story of Eddie Coyle. Told mostly in conversation the plot loosely revolves around petty criminal Eddie Coyle facing a sentencing trial and working to maneuver himself out of it with the a...more

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Oct 18, 2011 Pagonper rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: regalos-laura, own

Me ha gustado, sin embargo después de leer las citas y el prólogo no ha llegado a todo lo que esperaba. Pongo alguna de las citas para que os hagáis una idea.

"La mejor novela negra que se haya escrito nunca. Hace que El halcón maltés parezca un juego de niños" Elmore Leonard

"Elmore Leonard aprendió de esta novela, así como David Mamet y por supuesto Quentin Tarantino, quien vio en el hecho de mezclar la violencia con la comedia de costumbres una virtud narrativa" Richard Raynar (Los Angeles Time...more

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Jun 23, 2010 Matthew Leach rated it 5 of 5 stars

George V Higgins was a Boston lawyer who took to writing, this is his first book. In it he displays his incredibly sharp ear for the many and various patois of the region; it is so precise that I've often wondered if anybody who has not lived in the Boston area and known its many dialects could truly appreciate the way Higgins captures them.
There are many other qualities to appreciate: his swift characterizations, his knack for suspense, his deft portrayal of criminals at the edge and the harri...more

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Aug 27, 2011 Rose rated it 4 of 5 stars

George V. Higgins's 1972 novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a classic crime novel often referred to by other crime novelists as one of the greatest of the genre. In fact, it was Higgins's first novel and, despite a long career in writing, his most famous and well-received. Higgins studied English in college and then worked for the Associated Press before heading back to law school and becoming a US attorney. But he never left behind his desire to be a writer, and after as many as ten previous b...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Lawrence FitzGerald rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: characterization, noir, 1970-s

It was a quick read, maybe 45,000 words (it was as long as it needed to be and no longer - a resoundingly good thing). The focus of the novel is Eddie Coyle, a small time criminal, his efforts to mitigate a forth coming prison sentence, and the subsequent impact on his acquaintances and associates. The novel is 90% dialogue through which the reader discovers the storyline (a method of storytelling I greatly admire). Most of the dialog occurs between no more than two characters at a time. In the...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Ctgt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So we have Eddie Coyle, a low level hood who is playing every end against the middle. He is supplying guns to a bank heist crew, he's awaiting trial for a liquor heist and trying to work a deal with a cop Dave Foley. As I watch this story unfold, I'm thinking to myself, how does he think he's gonna get away with fingering these guys? He never seems to have an endgame in mind he just seems to be waiting for the most opportune time to drop the dime. Of course the cop strings him along and well, le...more

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Nov 10, 2012 Mike rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: dnf

We "read" a lot of audio books when we travel by car. One time, a few years ago, we left D.C. and started a new book. By the time we got to Trenton N.J. we were starting to think something was strange. The story seemed to jump around in time, and it didn't seem to be a useful literary device. Then we started to say things to each other like, "Shouldn't the author have put this earlier in the story?" Finally, we noticed, to much merriment, that the player was set to "shuffle".

"The Friends of Eddi...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Eren Cain rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I got this book after seeing an interview with Elmore Leonard where he said that this was the novel that showed him what was possible in the realm of crime fiction. I finished it in a day, and came away completely inspired.

First of all, Lehane's introduction is fantastic - so I def recommend getting it - however, I recently found and posted an amazingly gonzo vintage cover of this book on my tumblr - http://ecstories.tumblr.com/

Now, while a lot of people talk about telling a story mostly with di...more I got this book after seeing an interview with Elmore Leonard where he said that this was the novel that showed him what was possible in the realm of crime fiction. I finished it in a day, and came away completely inspired.

First of all, Lehane's introduction is fantastic - so I def recommend getting it - however, I recently found and posted an amazingly gonzo vintage cover of this book on my tumblr - http://ecstories.tumblr.com/

Now, while a lot of people talk about telling a story mostly with dialogue, like Elmore Leonard and James M. Cain, it is a tricky thing to do really well. But this book so far, is hands down the best thing I've read with regard to painting characters with how they talk, and what a cast of characters. The working stiffs, low life degenerates, and pragmatic killers in this book are tremendous, mostly because they're hyper real and unpredictable, along with the story. And that is always the thing isn't it (for me at least).

Lehane says that in "Eddie Coyle, talk is the meal" and it is indeed. This story is beautifully sketched in disparate parts, however, you know in your heart (or at least I always want to believe) that those parts are on a careening collision course toward each other.

My favorite little chunk of dialogue for now is from the sanguine, opportunistic cop Foley to Eddie -

"Look, Eddie," Foley said, "you go some place and have yourself a glass of beer and a long talk with yourself. The only one fucking Eddie Coyle is Eddie Coyle. You wanted a call. You gave me a grab to get the call. You got the call. You want something else, you start thinking about how to get that. You know where to reach me. You don't want to reach me, that's also all right. No hard feelings. We're fair and square. I can certainly understand a man doesn't want to rat on his friends. I know that. You go to understand the position I'm in. All I can give you is what I tell you I can give you, and I gave you that. What you do next is entirely up to you."

And at this book's climax, you cannot believe what you ignored or didn't notice, because you were so engrossed in character, but all of a sudden, the story is running full tilt, and it's almost over...and like Lehane says, "Here's to Eddie Coyle. As with his creator, we'll never see his like again."(less)

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Feb 26, 2013 Benoit Lelievre rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is considered a crime classic and rightfully so. To a certain extent, this is part of the contemporary literature canon also. I wouldn't be ashamed at all to discuss THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE at a literature convention for it shows many aspects worth talking about and it's a novel as endearing in its strengths as it is in its flaws.

While I can't say this dialogue-heavy approach worked wonders for me, it truly is a testament to how potent you can make your dialogue if you put your shoulder...more

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Jan 14, 2012 Hilary rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: grad-class

Well, I am a fan of crime drama tv shows--SVU, NCIS, Criminal Minds--and movies. And sometimes I like mysteries--Dan Brown crap, you know--but this, purportedly the "best crime novel ever written" (so says one of the reviews on the back cover) was...well, it was ok. And yes, I had to read it for class (narrative theorists are WAY into detective fiction for some reason). But there were a lot of characters that I couldn't keep straight, because for half the novel, some of them didn't have names (t...more

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May 05, 2010 FiveBooks added it

Shelves: fivebooks-trial-by-jury

Criminal barrister Alex McBride has chosen to discuss The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V Higgins on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject - Trial By Jury, saying that:

“…This is a thriller that really captures the low-rent squalor of most criminals’ lives and the cynicism of the police and the lawyers. It’s about the kind of trade-offs that people make – Coyle is sold down the river by his friends and you see how the police and the lawyers co-exist with the criminals and the symbi...more

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Apr 23, 2010 Mike Burrell rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Friends of Eddie Coyle is one of the most realistic crime novels of the Twentieth Century. Higgins' was at at the top of his game with this, his first book, and the following two novels--The Digger's Game and Cogan's Trade. I've read all of his books. His stories are always interesting, but in later novels, his penchant for telling the story through dialogue eventually evolved into telling the story through monologue or shaggy dog stories that lasted for pages. Sometimes it was hard to know...more

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Jan 21, 2012 Omar Bonilla rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book deserves a re-read.

This book, unlike any I've ever read, is told almost entirely through dialogue. Each chapter is more or less a conversation between any number of well-developed criminals or agents, each of which slowly bleed into each other's lives as the story progresses. The characters involved aren't always obvious though, as they are sometimes simply referred to as "the stocky man" or "the spokesman."

I first heard about this book on the Boston episode of Anthony Bourdain's No R...more

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Feb 19, 2010 Dillon Strange rated it 4 of 5 stars

A seminal crime book from the early 70s involving bank robbers, a young gun runner and Eddie Coyle, the aging half-ass wise guy who is trying to get out of doing a stretch upstate by offering information to the cops. The plot is straightforward and moves along at a nice clip, also the book is pretty short so I plowed through it like it was a passed out sorority chick at a kegger. I even high fived some bros when I was done. Highly recommended if crime books are your bag. The dialogue in this one...more

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May 17, 2013 Allan MacDonell rated it 5 of 5 stars

Eddie Coyle—a very careful double-crosser with a double set of knuckles—is the kind of wise mug who when he hits a bump of bad luck comes up with a bright idea to seat himself back in the lap of good fortune. He strikes a deal with a cop, entering an agreement the terms of which he has no power to enforce, and pulls every known associate and casual business acquaintance in his shady orbit into the fallout of his bad bargain. The Friends of Eddie Coyle are pragmatic career criminals and his anti-...more

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Jan 18, 2013 Manuel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013

Recently I got my hands on the movie "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" by Peter Yates and with Robert Mitchum as the leading star. I've been a long time Mitchum's fan. I can honestly say I've watched all his movies (memorable late afternoons and nights at the Portuguese Cinemateca in Lisbon a long time ago...).

Along with "The Night of The Hunter" and "The Lusty Man" (one of Nick Ray's masterpieces), it's still Mitchum's best film, as far I'm concerned. I hadn't seen the movie for more than 20 years....more Recently I got my hands on the movie "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" by Peter Yates and with Robert Mitchum as the leading star. I've been a long time Mitchum's fan. I can honestly say I've watched all his movies (memorable late afternoons and nights at the Portuguese Cinemateca in Lisbon a long time ago...).

Along with "The Night of The Hunter" and "The Lusty Man" (one of Nick Ray's masterpieces), it's still Mitchum's best film, as far I'm concerned. I hadn't seen the movie for more than 20 years. Watching it again reminded me why I loved this period of filmmaking. Damn, but they could shoot wonderful noir movies back in the day... Noir has always been of my passions, whether in literary terms or in movie form.

After watching the movie I felt I had to read the novel on which it was based, ie, George V. Higgins' book of the same name. I was completely astonished by Higgin's mastery of the form. It's all there. One of the problems of reading a novel after watching the movie on which it was based is that in the back of your mind the characters are personified by flesh and bone actors. Most of the time this is not a good thing... Robert Mitchum was the only actor in the world that could have portrayed Eddie Coyle in its absolute calmness. He elevated this style of non-acting to an art form.

The book doesn't have anything flashy, just pure tension, conveyed through the magnificent dialog. Higgins tells the story of Eddie and his friends through vintage dialogue, and he tells it swiftly and well. Characterization is at a minimum. I never thought that a book without a high density of characterization was even remotely possible, let alone that it could be a successful work of fiction. This novels proves it. It's possible...

The book is spare and it’s as cold as concrete. Through the observational style, we forget that, inevitably, the world in which these characters operate is chaotic. Everything seems so reasonable and certain, every word and action measured.

The quintessential noir book.

PS. "Doctor Copernicus", "Gun Machine" and now "The Friends of Eddie Coyle". My first three book of 2013, and all of them top-notch! I hope it's not all crap from here on out...lol(less)

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Feb 10, 2012 Skip Knox rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a pretty famous book in the crime genre. It probably deserves four stars, but while I liked it, it personally didn't like it well enough to go the extra star.

The dialog is what gets all the attention by reviewers and rightly so. For me it wasn't so much the dialog itself as that the author uses dialog to tell most of the story. This is a daring choice, neatly inverting the "show don't tell" rule. But it works here. The reader feels as if he's right at the shoulder of these guys, in the m...more

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Apr 23, 2011 Johnny rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's obvious why this is considered such a classic. But it could have easily been overlooked. When an author makes it look this easy, so fluid, and written with so much confidence, it can often be overlooked for its deceptive simplicity. And to top it off, this was Higgins' first novel.

I read the book ten years ago before I started writing novels, so it was interesting to return to it with a writer's eye. I was amazed that the story is told almost entirely through dialogue. Not just a little bit...more

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82121.The_Friends_of_Eddie_Coyle?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1171012318l/82121.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82121.The_Friends_of_Eddie_Coyle?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins[/url]

The Friends of Eddie Coyle

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