If I made a top ten list of hardboiled novels, The Friends Of Eddie Coyle would not be at the bottom. It's almost perfect.....funny, bitter, suspenseful. It hits every note and hits them perfectly. None of Higgins's other novels that I have read are in the in the same class. Irony, real irony, is a pretty hard thing to handle. A lot of tough guy writers try to hit an ironic note and completely flub it. In this one, Higgins is just on time and in tune in every paragraph.
The story was so good even Hollywood couldn't screw it up. As a matter of fact the movie, while not a patch on the book, was really very fine.
James
----- Original Message -----
From: jacquesdebierue
To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, January 08, 2010 09:36
Subject: RARA-AVIS: The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Yesterday I reread this one, it had been years and years. Terrific novel... is there another one that even resembles it?
We should discuss Higgins more often. He was a great writer. Not the easiest reading, but high-quality.
Best,
mrt
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 08 Jan 2010 EST