The Friends of Eddie Coyle

The thing I remember most about this novel is how much I hated it and that is about the only thing that I remembered about it. I had to go and look up summaries and things online to even remember character names and plot points. Now I did read this a couple months ago, but I feel as if I just blocked it from my memory because of the horribleness of this novel.

Eddie Coyle, the main character of sorts, is a small time criminal that is also trying to inform to the police in exchange to avoid going to jail in New Hampshire after transporting liquor. Eddie at the time is also by guns for bank robberies for mob members lead by Jimmy Scalisi and Artie Van. Jackie Brown is the gun dealer and the first character that we are introduced to who is also trying to sell machine guns to a young couple. Coyle wants to turn over Brown to Dave Foley, an ATF, in return for staying out of jail. Foley captures Brown when he goes to sell the machine guns, but he tells Coyle that this isn't enough to keep him out of jail. Coyle is going to tell Foley about the bank robberies, but Foley has already been informed about it after Scalisi's disrespected the woman he was living with and she told a cop friend she ran into. The robbers are busted and Coyle is pinned as being the informant. Dillion, the local bar owner and hit man, is hired and after taking Eddie out of the town shots him.

I seriously took and hour looking all this up because I couldn't remember a lot of it so here is hoping that this isn't a major part of the test. Overall I extremely disliked this book and it seems that I am in the minority. Higgins is a great writer, but the characters were unsympathetic and the plot was rather boring. It was just really dark and boring for me, but it seems that a lot of other people really enjoyed it. Maybe I am just not into dark detective novels or I just don't know what I am talking about, but I would not recommend this novel to anyone.