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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.

Fast-talking, hard-living politicians, priests, smugglers and thieves play the game of the Boston streets in George V. Higgins'The Patriot Game. Federal agent Pete Riordan is as tough as they come; he's six-foot-four with a bad knee and a mean temper, but his commitment to his job is beyond exemplary. When he is called upon to find the man delivering arms to the I.R.A. he takes to with gusto. Little did he know it'd be such a guessing game; bar proprietor Digger Doherty is rumored to have leads, and convicted killer Mikey-Magro serving time in Walpole certainly knows more than he lets on. But no one is coming forward and time is running out, and why is Mikey-Magro being released from jail prematurely anyway? Teeming with unlikely characters and fiery dialogue that propel the plot to break-neck speed, The Patriot Game is nothing short of a George V. Higgins masterpiece.

The characters truly speak for themselves in George V. Higgins'chilling tour de force about deceit, blackmail and the importance of paying one's dues. Ultimate recidivist Earl Beale has learnt little from his early release from jail and narrow escape from being drafted, seemingly nothing can cure him of his criminal ways. Obsessed by money, and with a keen eye for scheming, he's the kind of car salesman no one can trust. When suddenly some unfinished business from his past catches up with him, it's dubitable whether he's going to successfully extricate himself from this one. A witty yet stinging tale of the dangers of putting money and self-interest above everything else, Trust is about a man with no scruples.