John Williams:
> To my mind his least satisfying books are his one
attempt at a series the
> Jerry Kennedy novel (Kennedy for the Defence at al )
which tend to the
arch.
>
> As to his legal background, Higgins worked for the
DA before setting up in
> private practice as a criminal lawyer. Later he
taught creative writing.
He
> was indeed a hard man to know, one who didn't suffer
fools gladly, and was
> for a long time unhappy to be classified as a crime
writer (later though
he
> mellowed and once told me that to be thought of in
the same league as
> Leonard or Ross Thomas was fine by him).
John, A few years ago I read his non-fiction The Progress of
the Seasons because supposedly it was about the Red Sox.
Actually it's more a memoir. I think when he was trying to be
pleasant this personality you and Jerry refer to came out as
didn't particularly like him and had not read any of his
fiction books until recently. Like you I was very impressed
by Friends of Eddie Coyle and liked Digger's Game. I think
the movie of Coyle was hurt by not having Jackie Brown played
by a black actor, but caught much of the novel.
When I first knew I would be doing this month on Boston I
started looking for his books in used book stores. I was
surprised how they have almost disappeared.Compare that to
Parker whose first books came out only a couple of years
after Higgins' The books I saw were Kennedy's, but I do have
Rat on Fire which now goes up higher on my tbr list.
Mark
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