“Cold Case Extraordinaire”- Master Crime Novel George V. Higgins’
The Mandeville Talent
Book Review
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
The Mandeville Talent, George V. Higgins, 1991
Hey, any friend of Eddie Coyle’s is a friend of mine. You know Eddie, right, the Cambridge-bred corner boy who got tied up with some guys who did some things, a little of this and that late at night, a little of this and that about giving guys the means to go rooty-toot-toot, did some things that “Uncle” might take umbrage at and try to put a guy away for, for a nickel or a dime, maybe. And poor middle-aged sag Eddie did not want to do the time, no way, but also got caught up in something too big for him to handle. So you know Eddie Coyle the guy who was found not looking too pretty one cop car morning in the back of a stolen Chevy in some back parking lot in some dead-drop bowling alley off Dorchester Avenue in Boston.
Actually now that I think about the matter I don’t know, never heard of, could not say word one about some guy, what was his name again, oh yeah, Eddie Coyle. And of course while a lot of ex-corner boys (Jack Slack’s bowling alleys in North Adamsville for me) knew plenty of guys exactly like benighted Eddie no one could actually know him since he was the fictional creation of the author under review, George V. Higgins, in his first and most famous crime novel, The Friends Of Eddie Coyle published in 1972 (and later adapted for the cinema starring Robert Mitchum as the stand-up guy of the title). But, see, Brother Higgins was a prolific writer and although many of his best works and pieces of righteous ear for “street” dialogue involved low-end, well, gangster types he wrote other crime-centered books where the “bad guys” were not front and center, did not in the final push get away with murder. Although in the book under review, The Mandeville Talent, it was a close thing, a very close thing.
The air these days is full of “cold case” murder shows and books but Higgin’s is probably an early attempt to place this genre into literature. Here is the skinny on the case and you can decide how close to not solving the solving of this one was. The Mandeville family had been a big name out in the Berkshires for a long time, respectable people who ran the local bank and prospered. Back the 1950s and 1960s though the latest Mandeville, James, got the itch to make really big money, bigger than that old steady generation’s money, just to prove he could do it. Just to put the James Mandeville name up to the front of the clan. So he bought a big lot of land that he expected to turn into a huge profit as people, people with cars, people tired of the city, people who made enough money to have a second home in the golden age of America, drifted into the valley.
See even though Jim had big appetites for success he also had that slow growth Mandeville DNA embedded in his soul so he hedged his bets, didn’t want to put all of his wealth in the basket. So he borrowed some of the dough. Problem was that he had to borrow some of the dough, borrow it from “connected” guys (and if you don’t know who they are then think “godfathers”) who also saw the land as a boondoggle. And that set up Mandeville for execution gangland style in 1967-a “hit.” A messy job that no question was a flat-out murder with a purpose. Except through more sleighs-of-hands, more legal, judicial, medical and law enforcement incompetence, and more nefarious doings the clear-cut murder got dismissed as a suicide, or if that was not good enough then reduced to just a plain unsolvable murder.
Fast forward twenty-plus years and a professor grand-daughter, Julie, married to an up and coming Wall Street lawyer, Joe, is gnashing her teeth to find out who murdered grandpa. And said Joe tired of the New York City rat race is ready to oblige her even though the case is as cold as ice, a no-winner. Except Joe is undaunted, especially when he finally teams up with an old intelligence officer, Baldo, and they work the records, work the data, work with anybody who has the slightest notion of what happened back then in 1967 and before as they slowly a mass enough evidence that old man Mandeville and his dreams had been cut short by the mob, not your old Al Capone shoot-em-up mob, not even Eddie Coyle’s street-wise mob but a mob which operated on a business model of foresight, exploration, patience, and cunning and capable of placing “moles” in place to make sure things go their way just like any legal business. Funny though in the end they had had to go to the old reliable, the “hit” to solve their Mandeville problem. Just like with Eddie Coyle. Go figure.
Book Review
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
The Mandeville Talent, George V. Higgins, 1991
Hey, any friend of Eddie Coyle’s is a friend of mine. You know Eddie, right, the Cambridge-bred corner boy who got tied up with some guys who did some things, a little of this and that late at night, a little of this and that about giving guys the means to go rooty-toot-toot, did some things that “Uncle” might take umbrage at and try to put a guy away for, for a nickel or a dime, maybe. And poor middle-aged sag Eddie did not want to do the time, no way, but also got caught up in something too big for him to handle. So you know Eddie Coyle the guy who was found not looking too pretty one cop car morning in the back of a stolen Chevy in some back parking lot in some dead-drop bowling alley off Dorchester Avenue in Boston.
Actually now that I think about the matter I don’t know, never heard of, could not say word one about some guy, what was his name again, oh yeah, Eddie Coyle. And of course while a lot of ex-corner boys (Jack Slack’s bowling alleys in North Adamsville for me) knew plenty of guys exactly like benighted Eddie no one could actually know him since he was the fictional creation of the author under review, George V. Higgins, in his first and most famous crime novel, The Friends Of Eddie Coyle published in 1972 (and later adapted for the cinema starring Robert Mitchum as the stand-up guy of the title). But, see, Brother Higgins was a prolific writer and although many of his best works and pieces of righteous ear for “street” dialogue involved low-end, well, gangster types he wrote other crime-centered books where the “bad guys” were not front and center, did not in the final push get away with murder. Although in the book under review, The Mandeville Talent, it was a close thing, a very close thing.
The air these days is full of “cold case” murder shows and books but Higgin’s is probably an early attempt to place this genre into literature. Here is the skinny on the case and you can decide how close to not solving the solving of this one was. The Mandeville family had been a big name out in the Berkshires for a long time, respectable people who ran the local bank and prospered. Back the 1950s and 1960s though the latest Mandeville, James, got the itch to make really big money, bigger than that old steady generation’s money, just to prove he could do it. Just to put the James Mandeville name up to the front of the clan. So he bought a big lot of land that he expected to turn into a huge profit as people, people with cars, people tired of the city, people who made enough money to have a second home in the golden age of America, drifted into the valley.
See even though Jim had big appetites for success he also had that slow growth Mandeville DNA embedded in his soul so he hedged his bets, didn’t want to put all of his wealth in the basket. So he borrowed some of the dough. Problem was that he had to borrow some of the dough, borrow it from “connected” guys (and if you don’t know who they are then think “godfathers”) who also saw the land as a boondoggle. And that set up Mandeville for execution gangland style in 1967-a “hit.” A messy job that no question was a flat-out murder with a purpose. Except through more sleighs-of-hands, more legal, judicial, medical and law enforcement incompetence, and more nefarious doings the clear-cut murder got dismissed as a suicide, or if that was not good enough then reduced to just a plain unsolvable murder.
Fast forward twenty-plus years and a professor grand-daughter, Julie, married to an up and coming Wall Street lawyer, Joe, is gnashing her teeth to find out who murdered grandpa. And said Joe tired of the New York City rat race is ready to oblige her even though the case is as cold as ice, a no-winner. Except Joe is undaunted, especially when he finally teams up with an old intelligence officer, Baldo, and they work the records, work the data, work with anybody who has the slightest notion of what happened back then in 1967 and before as they slowly a mass enough evidence that old man Mandeville and his dreams had been cut short by the mob, not your old Al Capone shoot-em-up mob, not even Eddie Coyle’s street-wise mob but a mob which operated on a business model of foresight, exploration, patience, and cunning and capable of placing “moles” in place to make sure things go their way just like any legal business. Funny though in the end they had had to go to the old reliable, the “hit” to solve their Mandeville problem. Just like with Eddie Coyle. Go figure.
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