Outlaws

By George V. Higgins

Gripping and entertaining, George V. Higgins delivers a compelling and uncomfortably realistic account of the way society and the law really function.
 
It’s been a decade since the turbulent 60s and policeman John Richards still has to deal with a handful of leftover student radicals who continue to terrorize the Boston streets. In an effort to convict them once and for all, he liaises with ambitious lawyer Terry Gleason. Matters culminate one crisp Sunday morning when the students decide to rob the Friary, a pub in downtown Boston well-established as a site of drug-trafficking. Seven civilians are left dead in what comes to be called the Friary massacre. The trial proves nightmarish and unpredictable, not unlike the decade it took Richards and Gleason to apprehend the culprits in the first place.
 
In a heart-stopping rendition of cops and robbers, Outlaws proves that in the Boston demimonde nothing is as it seems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9780345804662

George V. Higgins

George V. Higgins (1939-1999) was a lawyer, journalist, teacher, and the author of 29 books, including Bomber's Law, Trust , and Kennedy for the Defense. His seminal crime novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle was the basis for the 1973 Robert Mitchum film of the same name.

Reviews for Outlaws

[mikebruscellsr · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This was not an enjoyable read. It started out as if it would be, however, two-thirds of the way through it became a chore, and I looked for reasons to put it down - and had to search for more reasons to pick it up again. The hunt for the gang of robbers was interesting, the courtroom hi-jinks a little less so, but the last third of "the establishment is just as bad as the radicals", and the accompanying psychiatric review of some of the characters was plain boring. The use of the "ensemble" as a cover for derring-do was not believable, and the undoing of one of the main protagonists, Gleason, where he is was shown not only be less than a man of clay feet, but, unbelievably, of a man with sh*t for feet dissipated all the interest one might have in this character. I actually bought "Outlaws" because my alma mater is mentioned in the book, a poor reason for having read it cover to cover.