National Book Award FinalistWith a new introduction by Dennis LehaneElmore Leonard called The Friends of Eddie Coyle “the best crime novel ever written—makes The Maltese Falcon read like Nancy Drew." Time magazine lau**ded its author as** "America's best crime novelist."Picador celebrates the 40th anniversary of this semina...

Jerry "Digger" Doherty is an ex-con and proprietor of a workingman's Boston bar, who supplements his income with the occasional "odd job," like stealing live checks and picking up hot goods. His brother’s a priest, his wife’s a nag, and he’s got a deadly appetite for martinis and gambling. But when the Digger looses eighteen grand in borrowed money on a trip to Vegas, he quickly finds himself in the sights of mob loneshark “the Greek,” who will have to make the Digger pay up one way or ano...

A hard-hitting, tour de force tale of the mob and the man who makes sure their rules are the only rules, by the American master of crime George V. Higgins.Jackie Cogan is an enforcer, and when the mob's rules get broken, Cogan is called in to take care of business. This time a high-stakes card game has been held up by an unknown gang of thugs. Calculating, ruthless, businesslike, and with a shrewd sense of other people's weaknesses, Cogan plies his trade, moving among a variety of ...

Now a Major Motion Picture Starring Brad PittJackie Cogan is an enforcer for the mob. When a high-stakes card game is heisted by unknown hoodlums, Cogan is called in to “handle” the problem. Moving expertly and ruthlessly among a variety of criminal hacks, hangers-on, and bigger-time crooks—a classic cast of misfits animated by Higgins’s hilarious, cracklingly authentic dialogue—Cogan gets to the root of the problem and, with five consecutive shots from a Smith & W...

A thrilling account of the ins and outs of the Suffolk County Superior Court, this novel is vintage George V. Higgins.The third installment in the Jerry Kennedy series finds the Boston lawyer defending his toughest client yet, Billy Ryan. But it’s a few years on and battered Boston lawyers don’t look so hot under strong white light. Seemingly not the man he was, Jerry has to dig deep to come out on top in discrediting the prosecution. He looks to the likes of Bad-eye Mulvey, Cadill...

Jerry Kennedy has been aptly described by his ex-wife as "the classiest sleazy criminal lawyer in Boston." Now, Jerry must defend the man that no one else will: Billy Ryan. The longtime commissioner of public works has cut one shady deal too many. Even Jerry harbors no illusions about the man's corruption. "If they didn't have Billy for selling the apple to the serpent who peddled it to Eve," he figured, "it was because the serpent refused to testify against him. Professional courtesy and ...

Beginning in 1946, a then eight-year-old George Higgins, accompanied by father and grandfather, began taking the long train ride out to Fenway Park to find some truth in immortals like Doerr, DiMaggio, York, and Williams, and later, Yastremski, Marty Barrett, and many more. This is a book about baseball and about the Boston Red Sox; but that is only part of the story. Beyond the games, the book turns on thoughts about family and continuity and, of course, the progress of the seasons. There...

A dead body discovered in a rural Massachusetts wetland turns out to belong to a woman with a past: Sandra Nichols, missing for seven months. Wrongful death? Murder one? We’ll leave that to Jerry Kennedy.Judge Henry Lawler has his own reasons for appointing classmate Jerry Kennedy to try the case of the Estate of Sandra Nichols v. Peter Wade, on behalf of Sandra’s three orphaned children. An old hand at criminal cases, Jerry makes an exception for Judge Henry to try this c...

A fast-paced, witty and authentic novel that transports the reader into the exhilarating world of crime and chicanery that defines the life of Boston lawyer, Jerry Kennedy.Heretofore successful lawyer Jerry Kennedy, our classy yet sleazy protagonist, finds himself grasping at straws when his world begins to crumble around him. His accountant jailed, his wife giving him the silent treatment, his mentor and friend, Frank McDonald, curiously unresponsive, Jerry grapples with public sl...

For court clerk Ambrose Merrion, life was about people taking care of one another. For Danny Hilliard, politics was a matter of acquiring the power to make sure that society did just that. With Merrion shrewdly managing Hilliard’s campaigns as a rising politician, the two friends made an excellent team.But trouble starts brewing when Merrion unexpectedly inherits ill-gotten gains from a corrupt predecessor, enabling him to indulge with Danny in the finer luxuries. To Merrion’s dism...

A masterwork of crime and black comedy, George V. Higgins is in his element as he spell-bindingly recounts lawyer Jerry Kennedy’s more fragrant cases.Keen to take some time off, Jerry Kennedy plans a short holiday en famille at Green Harbor, his eclectic clients don’t get the memo however. His drive-by clientele, the car thieves, pimps, drug dealers and boatyard mechanics are diverse in all respects but one, persistence. Matters come to a head when a midnight intruder brea...

In his final novel George V. Higgins provides us with yet another searing and enthralling dissection of the Boston underworld.Arthur McKeach and Nick Cistaro are notorious, especially to the Boston police department. Their reputations precede them as orchestrators of extortion, theft, fraud, bribery, assault and even murder. But for thirty two years, both have managed to elude the authorities. A profitable “arrangement” with the FBI, negotiated some thirty years previously, has kep...