Cogan's Trade [Hardcover]

George V. Higgins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1974

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 hoods, hangers-on, and big-timers, tracking those responsible, and returning "law and order" to the lawless Boston underworld.
 
Combining remarkable wit, crackling dialogue, and a singular ability to show criminal life as it is lived, George V. Higgins builds an incredible story of crime to an unforgettable climax. 

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

 “Higgins deserves to stand in the company of the likes of Chandler and Hammett as one of the true innovators in crime fiction.” —Scott Turow
 
"Higgins can plot a whole book like one long chase scene. He can write dialogue so authentic it spits." —Life
 
"The Balzac of the Boston underworld. ... Higgins is almost uniquely blessed with a gift for voices, each of them ... as distinctive as a fingerprint."—The New Yorker
 
“One of the great crime writers of the twentieth century.” —Kansas City Star

“Higgins writes about the world of crime with an authenticity that is unmatched.” --The Washington Post
 
“A uniquely gifted writer . . . who does at least as well by the Hogarthian Boston he knows as Raymond Chandler once did for Southern California.” —The New York Times
 
"Superb. . . Higgins is a complete novelist. His work will be read when the work of competing writers has been forgotten."—Chicago Daily News
 
"Brilliant. . . Higgins is a master stylist."--New York Post
 
“George V. Higgins’s mastery of the patois of the Boston criminal class is legendary.” —San Jose Mercury News --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

About the Author

George V. Higgins was the author of more than twenty novels, including the bestsellers The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Cogan's Trade, The Rat on Fire, and The Digger's Game. He was a reporter for the Providence Journal and the Associated Press before obtaining a law degree from Boston College Law School in 1967. He was an assistant attorney general and then an assistant United States attorney in Boston from 1969 to 1973. He later taught Creative Writing at Boston University. He died in 1999. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; 1st edition (1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394490576
• ISBN-13: 978-0394490571
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #407,740 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A classic of this genre., March 6, 2006

By 

Upstate New Yorker (upstate New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cogan's Trade (Paperback)

Cogan's Trade was one of George Higgins' earlier crime novels written in the 1970s. It is uniquely written in that the text is almost all dialogue. It is a story of Boston area Irish-American lowlife mobsters and their escapades. It concerns the gunpoint robbery of a mob-protected high stakes card game and the mayhem that ensues. The characters are all quite colorful and their language captures the time and the mileu. It is a novel I've reread several times and throughly enjoyed each reading . Definitely recommended for aficionados of the hard-boiled school of crime novels.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best of George V. Higgins, January 17, 2008

By 

Slim - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cogan's Trade (Paperback)

The late George V. Higgins earned a reputation as a master of low-life dialogue. Entire chapters of his books were often conversations, sometimes essentially monologues. This was a risky way to write. Some readers found the endless talk tedious, and many (this reviewer included) found his output uneven.

Cogan's Trade was perhaps his best, a slender and deceptively simple tale of intramural activity of the Boston area mob. A web of connections determines who does what to whom as the title character emerges to become a grand inquisitor who forgot about the commandment that states "Thou shalt not kill." Jackie Cogan, compact and intense, is a cold-blooded paradigm of mob virtue, while other characters prove they're not as smart as they think they are.

The result is a suspenseful tale full of comic relief. Most readers are content to go along for the ride, but the repeat reader begins to see layers and symbolism in the this little masterpiece from "the Balzac of the Boston underworld."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cogan' Trade, July 13, 2011

By 

Robert A. Stein (West Springfield, MA, US) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Cogan's Trade (Hardcover)

Excellent crime novel. It has been made into a film starring Brad Pitt which will be released in early 2012.