Bomber's Law

by George V. Higgins

Bob Brennan is an old-school Boston cop who knows a lot about Short Joey Mossi, a mob hit man who's neatly taken care of at least eleven competitors. In fact, as Harry Dell'Appa, a hotshot detective recalled from banishment in the sticks, discovers, Brennan not only knows a lot, but he talks a lot, too - about who Joey's killed and about how and why. So why won't Brennan bring Joey in? That's what Harry has to find out.

Genres: Crime, Fiction

296 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1993

About the author

George Vincent Higgins was a United States author, lawyer, newspaper columnist, and college professor. He is best known for his bestselling crime novels.

Reviews

[WJEP · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sgt. Harry Dell’Appa is a glib intellectual and a wiseass tough-guy cop. He wants to collar a gangster called Short Joe Mossi, and more than that, he wants to figure out why the department tanked it on Mossi. He smells a rat--what he was actually smelling was a "soggy squishy piece of human shit."

But the problem with this book is that there is no narration and no action. You need to glean everything--the plot, the characters, their motivations, their backgrounds, etc.--through the contentious conversations between Harry and his wife, other cops, and various lowlifes. And these conversations consist of pages and pages of tangents, asides, digressions, and digressions inside of digressions. Eventually you might see a "So anyway, ..." and the talker gets back on track. This is not easy reading. All of Higgin's books are difficult like this, but this one is extreme.

It was worth it for me. I got a kick out of all the ball-breaking, chain-yanking, chop-busting, leg-pulling, monkey-making, goat-getting cage-rattling, feather-rustling, and button-pushing.

[Doug Baird · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting format. The book is essentially a series of conversations between Boston policemen that, if one were reading as opposed to listening to them, might seem boring and overlong. However, I listened to the audio version of this book and it was engaging. The actor who read for the audio version was great at portraying the different voices and I found the book very entertaining. Loved it actually.

[Walter Cox · Rating 1 out of 5]

Scenario: You pick up a book, liking the author, expecting something good. You keep reading past the first, slow pages, thinking that the real story will start.

Well, this entire book is like that. Nothing but 300 pages of tough guys talking tough guy talk about tough guy stories, without any tough guy action.

[Craigtator · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tough guys talking tough, at length, on meandering topics, and in multi page soliloquies.

Warning: Not for the beginning Higgins reader.

[Hobart Mariner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great vintage Higgins - annoying bastard Boston cops complaining about subcontractors. Higgins abstracted away all the residual adventure story from the crime genre (it's still there in Eddie Coyle, Cogan, and Patriot Game) and what was left is just glorious idiotic banter. Guys who went to bad law schools trying to remember their grammar school Latin in a vain attempt to impress genuinely illiterate gangsters. The plot of the book (somewhat intricate but also very minimal) is completely unimportant, the only thing that matters are the absurdly long digressions and asides just to illustrate fairly simplistic points. An extension of the ancient north Atlantic oral tradition that favored blowhards and assholes.

[Freddie the Know-it-all · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice Chickenshit Review so Youse Halfwits Don't Report Me and Get It Deleted

1. For Regular Halfwits

Rollicking romp. Roller-coaster ride. Taut. Chilling. Blistering. Riveting. Darky Comic. Gritty.

2. For Professors and Other Book Sciencetologist Halfwits

Denouement. Imagery. Poetics. Characterization. Harbinger.

And you wonder why people avoid you and you have no friends? Go be a Professor somewhere else, where people have to sit through your chloroform or they'll fail the course.

[Rome Doherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this on my shelf so I must have read it years ago, long enought that I didn't remember the plot. I'd give it five stars but it's a little dated -- phone booths, primative computers etc. Higgens can write dialog!

[Matt Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

Takes a while to get into, but a helluva crime novel.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Much as i love Higgin's dialogue, i just couldn't persevere with this book. 10% in, i just gave up. It wasn't so much the dialogue heavy writing, as it's relentlessness & directionless meanderings & digressions. Maybe i'll come back to it some time, but only after reading all of Higgin's other novels.

[Will Henson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed it, but would only suggest to only those most die-hard of Higgins fans. It's his style for sure, but his style on some sort of mutant elephant steroids. Would have loved to pick his brain on what his thinking was on producing this versus The Friends of Eddie Coyle (two extremely different books, yet both almost entirely dependent on dialogue). But like I said, if you're a Higgins zealot (as I am), I think you'll get a kick out of it.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I decided to read Higgin's book after repeatedly seeing trailers for the new Brad Pitt movie Killing Them Softly which is based on Coogan's game -another Higgins novel I remember reading enthusiastically many years ago. I cannot say that I am as enthused as all that about this later novel by Higgins. 98% of the novel is dialogue and most of that are a series of conversations between three members of the Massachusetts State Police. The conversations are lengthy, labyrynthine and frequently stupifyingly boring. Higgins may write the way real cops talk but if they do actually talk like this please keep them away from me. Somewhere in the mists of these conversations is a criminal investigation against a Mafia hitman. Te Staties eventually seem to get their man but not for the murders he may or may not have committed. A corrupt State Trooper is outed and there is way too much time spent on discussions about real estate or remodeling. Higgins writes interesting dialogue and to hear actors perform these words might be interesting but until I see the new Brad Pitt movie I think I will stay off the Higgins bandwagon

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Higgins stuff is now coming out posthumously as e-books. He writes dialogue and pretty much only dialogue. I'm working my way through the series. Higgins was a US Attorney, he must have spent a lot time listening to cops and crooks. There's a lot dialogue in Bomber's Law that doesn't either advance the plot or illuminate the characters, but it certainly was worth finishing.

[Harry Lane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good procedural, but I was a bit put off by the lengthy dialog. It just didn't seem right to me that every character would carry on such extended conversations.

[Kit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long; worth it for the ending.

[Deborah Sheldon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm a crazy devout fan of many George V. Higgins works (such as 'Cogan's Trade'), but this... I couldn't bring myself to even finish it. Oh, forgive me, George, wherever you are! I love you still!

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read about 1/4 of the way through and grew tired of this mostly monologue, some dialog and no action book. Might be better on audio.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow-going thus far.