An excellent hard-boiled tale that takes place in the early 70s in the Boston area. I found the book a quick read filled with authentic-sounding criminal dialog. Higgins was an assistant DA at one time and it's clear that he knew a lot about crime and the criminals that performed them. It was also nice that he mentioned a number of real-life locations like the Red Coach Grill in Braintree, Ma.

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In the movies, there's a tendency to romanticize crime. For fans of such movies, this book might serve as a cold shower reminder that crime is not fun, and it's most certainly not a game. Set in and around Greater Boston, the book follows a few criminals and a few law enforcement types going about their work. There's no glamor at all. Instead, the book washes the reader in stark dialogue, with even sparser narration. I found myself reading parts of this book out loud, just to hear that great dialogue out in the air. "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" is a fantastic deep dive into the mind of the modern two-bit criminal, and it's very much worth a read.

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