Missing George V Higgins

I ran across this clip today.  The expression has been credited to many people but its real source is George V Higgins' first published novel, The Friends of Eddie Coyle.

I've written before of my love for the work of Higgins. (A post I spent more time on, including numerous rewrites, than anything else on THC).  He passed in 1999 and I still miss the comforting delivery of his annual novel, a rhythm I could rely upon for two decades.

As a reminder of his talent here is a recent article from CrimeReads.  An excerpt:

The Friends of Eddie Coyle may not have been the first crime novel set in Boston, but it’s the first one that matters. George V. Higgins couldn’t have known he was launching an entirely new subgenre when his fifteenth attempt at writing a debut novel was accepted for publication in 1970, but Coyle’s DNA is imprinted on everything that followed, from Robert B. Parker’s Spenser to Dennis Lehane’s Kenzie and Gennaro to the glut of Boston-based crime movies starring marble-mouthed actors pronouncing “car keys” like “khakis.”

Enjoy this scene from Eddie Coyle with Robert Mitchum playing the title role.  The actor with Mitchum below, and in the clip at top, is Steven Keats who played thugs or troubled characters in many movies during the 1970s and 80s.