The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a first novel by someone who has considerable talent for writing fiction. Its spare prose and stark portrayals of its characters make it a significant book, and these qualities may account for its broad popularity. Even so, it may have some of the faults that bedevil most first novels: a lack of balance between action and characterization, a lack of focus, too much psychologizing, awkward phrasing, or an unclear plot. In looking at the novel, discussion groups could approach it as a work that presages Higgins's later work. The groups could look in it for those elements which Higgins dropped, changed, or improved in later publications. Another potentially fruitful approach would be to examine the novel as a work of social criticism. In it, Higgins seems to deliberately make criminal acts seem part of everyday life, rather than sensationalizing them...