‘Higgins…has arranged the conventions of the crime novel into something new: oblique, bleak and often graveyard funny’ SUNDAY TIMES‘Every American crime writer of the past 30 years owes a debt to George V Higgins. Higgins is the daddy. Read him and rejoice’ Val McDermid‘Higgins deserves to stand in the company of Chandler and Hammett as one of the true innovators in crime fiction’ Scott TurowWhen the tenants of Jerry Fein’s dilapidated buildings refuse to pay the rent on account of the rats, Jerry drafts in arsonist Leo Proctor to take care of the problem. After all, the place is insured and the fire marshall’s back is turned, so what could go wrong?

‘Higgins…has arranged the conventions of the crime novel into something new: oblique, bleak and often graveyard funny’ THE SUNDAY TIMESAbout the AuthorGeorge V. Higgins was a lawyer in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office, in the Organized Crime section and the Criminal Division, and an Assistant United States Attorney, in Boston. He then founded his own private practice, defending Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy and Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver. Described as ‘the Balzac of the Boston underworld’, he wrote more than twenty novels, including a number of lowlife masterpieces constructed almost entirely out of pitch-perfect dialogue. He died in 1999.ReviewsHiggins deserves to stand in the company of Chandler and Hammett as one of the true innovators in crime fiction — Scott TurowHiggins is almost uniquely blessed with a gift for voices, each of them … as distinctive as a fingerprint. * NEW YORKER *The dialogue is everything, Runyonesque, dripping with lovely sewage * OBSERVER *Every American crime writer of the past 30 years owes a debt to George V Higgins. Higgins is the daddy. Read him and rejoice — Val McDermidBook InformationISBN 9781409137542Author George V. HigginsFormat PaperbackPage Count 224Imprint Orion (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )Publisher Orion Publishing CoWeight(grams) 218gDimensions(mm) 133mm * 201mm * 17mm