Word: digger
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...DIGGER'S GAME by GEORGE V. HIGGINS 214 pages. Knopf...
...best American crime novelist now at work is George V. Higgins, who is also an Assistant U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, a state rich in attorneys and in crime. Higgins' superiority seemed certain enough after The Friends of Eddie Coyle, his first novel, appeared two years ago. The Digger's Game, another wry look at Boston Irish lowlife, is his second try, and it is an even better malefiction than Eddie Coyle. No one else is turning out anything remotely like it in the concrete overshoes line...
...first The Digger's Game seems to follow familiar tracks. It is swift-paced, hard, quickly finished. Yet Higgins' plot exposes character, which deteriorates, producing plot, which further defines character. This describes the intent and achievement, not of a formula thriller, even one that is well written, but of a conventional novel. Of course, one does not want to goad a man who writes well about thugs to write badly about something else. Higgins' most obvious strength, moreover, is a traditional one for crime novelists. His dialogue is brilliant. "All the time, I'm thinking...
That's the Digger, Jerry Doherty. Big, tough, dumb-smart, the owner of a workingmen's bar. A sometime crook who has done time for possession of stolen TV sets. Now he's in trouble. He's flown out to Las Vegas and he's signed $18,000 worth of markers. He doesn't have the money. Digger's immediate problem is the Greek. It is the Greek who must collect the $18,000 plus $400 a week vigorish. He's tough, of course, but the idea of twisting the Digger...
When their confrontation comes, the Digger tells the Greek to go climb a tree. But he knows he's going to have to pay anyway because the Greek knows people who can be hired to break other people's knees with baseball bats. He goes to see his brother Paul, a monsignor in Boston, who has helped him out of bad spots before...