Outlaws

by George V. Higgins

They were a handful of leftover student radicals from the turbulent 60's - brilliant renegade children of affluence, financing their reign of urban terror through a series of daring armored car robberies. For nearly a decade they avoided capture, until justice final triumphed in the wake of a brutal mass murder in downtown Boston. But for the killers' families, the police, the obsessed young Assistant D.A., and the city itself, the nightmare was far from over. . . it had only just begun.

Genres: Fiction, Crime, Mystery

Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

George Vincent Higgins was a United States author, lawyer, newspaper columnist, and college professor. He is best known for his bestselling crime novels.

Reviews

[Rubberboots · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the things I really enjoy in books and movies, is good dialogue. That's why Pulp Fiction ranks as my favourite movie. So I picked up this book after learning that Higgins is probably the best at that. The book is 95% dialogue which was great. Not so great however was the last half of the book - but I'll get to that. The book starts a bit slow, but really turns it on with an investigation and court case. The dialogue in that courtroom puts Grisham to shame. After the courtroom drama, the book takes a slow turn and just drawls on. Somewhat interesting but a lot of filler. Too bad.

[Aaron Martz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is told in three parts. The first park is okay. The second part is some of the best courtroom writing I've ever read. And the third part is so boring, it negates all that comes before it. The book is 95% dialogue, as with all of Higgins's books, and when set in a courtroom, it is dynamic. But outside of that, it becomes tedious. Add to that the book concerns 1960s radicals who decide to become bank robbers, and yet the third part, which takes place after their case has been decided, deals with them only peripherally, instead focusing on the prosecutor's affair with one of their sisters, and how their parents were anarchists in their own right during World War II. Some of this is interesting, but it is remote to the plot, and for the last hundred pages, I felt like I was turning concrete instead of paper.

[Brian Grover · Rating 4 out of 5]

I forgot how much I liked George Higgins. This is a book about a bunch of 1960s radicals who turn into violent criminals, and their eventual prosecution, and it's just really rock solid crime writing. The courtroom scenes, and the behind-the-scenes prep for them, are particularly great. The book comes off the rails a bit in the third and final act, but on balance still really enjoyed it.

[Jerome Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

SPOILERS. This is a book ostensibly about outlaws, criminals and their crimes, and yet beyond the first few pages, the narrative doesn't follow any of that action - it actually seems to take an active role in teasing but then desperately avoiding 'doing the action', instead opting to cover the discussions before and after it.

Anyone who's read Higgins before shouldn't be surprised that the book is 95% dialogue and it certainly doesn't patronise with exposition, but I was sometimes lost and looking up characters on my Kindle. As someone else said the last third of the book takes a really weird turn, steers away from the criminal narrative altogether and is quite simply dull.

Read Friends of Eddie Coyle instead.

[Kit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great novel, brilliantly structured, wears its profundity lightly. Full of surprises. Shamefully out of print.

[Hobart Mariner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lesser Higg to be sure and maybe filed under "for completionists only." A band of poorly-sketched radicals, flotsam of the late 60s, execute a string of daring robberies around Boston, eventually going to trial. Naturally GVH is mostly interested in capturing the speech of all concerned. So lots of elaborate law talk from the Suffolk-nights lawyers and elaborate jury instruction from our judge. Many lines in here to support the hypothesis that screenwriter William Monahan, despite publicly disparaging The Friends of Eddie Coyle, freely ransacked GVH's work to find little lines and jokes for "The Departed."

Here the interesting twist is that the action ratchets ahead by 2 years or so at a jump, at least in the early chapters; in one chapter we learn a character has cancer, next chapter they are fondly remembered. This does take the book out of any sort of tension/thriller setting.

Alas our criminals are not Boston lowlifes. George...no! They don't talk about Bobby Orr or getting drunk and sunburned at Saquish or any of that good stuff.

Also by the end of the book we are entirely outside of Boston and instead among the wealthy patrons of a traveling orchestra, some (all?) of whom have connections with both the US intelligence apparatus as well as the band of (again, NOT Bostonian) young villains. There were resonances he was trying to set up between Cointelpro and its targets but I kind of cashed in my chips the last hundred pages there.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of this novel, culminating in a lengthy court trial, is possibly the best sustained sequence of writing Higgins had yet written. The back half can't help but feel like a letdown in comparison, but that just means it's a 4-star read instead of 5.

Fourteen novels into my trek through Higgins' fiction, all the usual caveats apply: Nobody wrote dialogue like him. (His ear was so finely tuned that reading your next book, by someone who probably resorts to typical dialogue cliches, can feel like whiplash.) Nobody used dialogue to tell a story like Higgins did. In the final 40 pages, the action shifts to what appear to be secondary, less important characters who then prattle on about classical music. If you don't read closely, you'll miss Higgins obliquely wrap up several plot strands without relying on authorial exposition. His expectation that you'll pay attention and stay with him through his torrents of speech is audacious, addictive, aspirational, and exhausting all at once.

At this point, with another 10 or so Higgins novels left to read, here's my unofficial top 5:
5. Kennedy for the Defense
4. Outlaws
3. The Digger's Game
2. The Friends of Eddie Coyle
1. A Choice of Enemies

[Richard N · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too Hard To Follow

I am a big fan of this author but this book had no continuity in it. It constantly jumped to different time periods and presented events that characters talked about and assumed you were familiar with. It was extremely difficult to even keep up with who the characters even were. Kind of like reading a Russian novel where the characters are referred to by multiple names. I just finished it and unlike the other books by this author, I still don't know what it was about.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Late period Higgins with a rad Paul Bacon cover of a speeding armored truck, it’s called Outlaws, and it’s about a decade long investigation into revolutionary thieves? Theoretically the greatest book of all time, no question.

The reality? A novel of only in-between moments of a heist and legal thriller, with a third act of parents talking (it’s great). A book that completely subverts every expectation, a kind of audacious anti-thriller for adventurous genre aficionados only.

[David Tybor · Rating 2 out of 5]

HESWB

[Doc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant writing, defies expectations of your notion of a crime thriller .

[Ben Brackett · Rating 4 out of 5]

The broadest scope of any of his novels I've read yet.

[Freddie the Know-it-all · Rating 1 out of 5]

In Chronological Order

1. Lawyers
2. Computer Hackers
3. International Intrigue
4. Spies

A lot of people like this kind of bullshit, but I'm not one of them.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

okay crime novel

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

(Contains spoilers)..... 1.5 stars.....I found Outlaws infuriating, especially since Higgins has done much, much better. The first half is the tale of the apprehension and trial of a crime ring that, in the name of "revolution", has escalated from robbing armored cars to a violent mass murder. With his usual love of dialogue and unusual structure Higgins cuts around most of the expected action beats; the story is told in a series of conversations between cops, prosecutors, and politicians involved in the case to varying degrees. After (SPOILER) Sam, the leader of the criminals, escapes justice the second half becomes a not very involving story of how Sam can be held accountable for his crimes. Minor characters come to the forefront and Higgins' style betrays him; he seems to think the climax of the novel is a TV interview between two characters we've just met. I'm a fan of Higgins' writing and am looking forward to the new film KILLING THEM SOFTLY, based on another of his novels. With Outlaws Higgins attempts to write an ambitious novel about young people warped by the twilight of the '60s (the story takes place from 1970-86), but he loses control of the story and the book winds down rather than coming to a satisfying end.

[False · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been reading all of George V. Higgins, coming to him rather late in the game, sadly. So far, so good. This book had me plodding through the first two-thirds, and I think one reason was the large cast of players, legally and criminally. It was hard to keep them all straight. The last portion of the book was excellent. Lots of twists and turns I wasn't expecting. A unique twist to who the "outlaws" might really be in this tale. There also wasn't a happy resolution to a twosome you had question marks about, anyway. Next up: "Kennedy for the Defense," which I've already started and it's locked me in with it's dialogue and characters. I'll be reading all of Higgins, fiction and non-fiction. The bulk of his work I have to acquire through an intralibrary loan service so the books will come from larger sources or universities. It's a shame so much of his stuff is unavailable on local book shelves, given how popular he was during his prime. Elmore Leonard, recently deceased, praised Higgins and admittedly learned from him. One wonders if Leonard's book will also fade from the public eye, after a decade...or so.

[Chuckles · Rating 1 out of 5]

This older crime novel is highly recommended by several crime writers for authentic dialogue. I didn't get it. First, the format is weird. The story is focused on a Boston detective and prosecutor who are seeking to see a group of 60's radicals who committed several armored car robberies and murders to justice. The story jumps from these two characters basically recounting events and the story, interspersed with jumps in time, and to other characters who you at first don't understand how they relate to the crime story. This related plot-line following some parents of the suspects and secrecy regarding what exactly they might do for the government and how that might be impacted by the actions of their children is confusing and disrupts the crime story. The plot is just all over the place and the jumps in time and bizarre way of telling the story through different narrators recounting events made it a jumbled mess. Add to that pointless romantic subplots bridging several characters and this was became an absolute mess.

[Gary Baughn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great George V. Higgins book, filled with people who talk very well, and talk like one another.
While he started out writing about criminal low-lifes, he eventually wrote about lawyers, and this book is a valiant attempt to look at how some criminals and lawyers interact over a very long period of time.
The crime is a series of bank robberies, but the criminals are 60s activists, financing their political activities.
In the cases of both the 60s activists/bank robbers/eventual murderers and the lawyers and cops who pursue them, the question explored over a period of at least 30 years is: do the ends justify the means? Does social justice justify robbing banks? Does catching a criminal justify breaking the law?

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

All the elements I love about Higgins aren't here. The dialogue is less sharp in too many places, and it comprises almost the whole book--as usual for Higgins. But other than the judicial and criminal investigation scenes, even the crime story itself is unclear and the characters fade in and out. Like it's been mentioned by a few others, I read the thing and feel lost, drifting and bored. Definitely not on par with the man's best work, or even his mediocre work, of which there's very little.

[Jason McCracken · Rating 1 out of 5]

Higgins relies on dialogue to tell 95% of his stories and usually it’s great dialogue but here I was lost, bored and eventually so completely disinterested that I couldn’t be bothered continuing. Maybe if you’re into courtroom arguments this might be your thing but there are so many better books from this guy that you shouldn’t be wasting your time on this one.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flat out brilliant.

[Cws]

M Hig

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

great novel but the ending is not completely satisfying...