Outlaws

Outlaws is such a good crime novel, full of so many rich characters and unexpected narrative shifts, that I am tempted to skip a review and just tell you to go read it. But this is a novel that must be praised, so let me point out that George V. Higgins has taken what appears to be a standard order police procedural (involving an investigation into a series of Boston area armored car robberies) and turned it into both a complex social drama that spans almost twenty years as well as an excellent courtroom thriller. Meanwhile, Higgins has developed more range as a prose stylist, not merely writing excellent dialogue (some of the best of his career) but also knowing how to set a scene by describing just the right detail, and finding a way to balance humor and seriousness in the exact proper proportions. Outlaws is another high-water mark for Higgins, in a career seemingly full of them.