He decides to orchestrate an inside job by paying two men to rob his poker room; although he later openly admits his involvement to various criminal figures, he suffers no retaliation.

After murdering Markie, Jackie meets with Mitch, another professional hitman, to prepare for the assassinations of Russell, Frankie, and Squirrel.

Russell is arrested on a drug possession charge; meanwhile, Jackie confronts Frankie and agrees to spare him his life, on the condition he reveal Squirrel's whereabouts.

Cogan's Trade and its predecessors The Friends of Eddie Coyle and The Digger's Game "exalt crime at the expense of criminals".

A book on American culture said, "A grand master of tactical digression, [Higgins] allows his narrative, containing the criminal design, to wind twistingly around a series of set pieces in which the action is suspended, often for chapters at a time, while the gangsters talk about sex and marriage, who goes out for coffee, their weight and root-canal work.

"[8] The New York Times, in its review of Cogan's Trade, wrote that the novel's appeal was "the seamy nether-world of the savage seventies" where none of the characters can be considered good.