The Friends of Eddie Coyle, published in 1970, is the debut novel of George V. Higgins, then an Assistant United States Attorney in Boston.

The relentless realism and unglamorous nature of the characters in Eddie Coyle was in sharp contrast to some other gangster novels of the era, particularly Mario Puzo's The Godfather, a more romanticized look at organized crime that later would be adapted into the popular 1972 film of the same name.

A gang led by Jimmy Scalisi and Artie Van has been pulling off a series of daring day-time bank robberies with pistols supplied by Coyle.

When taking the delivery of the pistols, Coyle witnesses the rifles in the trunk of Jackie Brown's car and immediately informs Foley.

Coyle feels he has fulfilled his end of the deal, but Foley puts the squeeze on Eddie, demanding more information for his cooperation.

During the arrests, the police shoot and kill a young member of the gang who is well-connected (and possibly related) to the head of a powerful crime family.

Dillon receives a call confirming the plan to kill Coyle, and subsequently invites him to the Bruins game that evening.

The novel was an instant success, with Higgins receiving praise from Norman Mailer as "the American writer who is closest to Henry Green.

The book’s characters and conversations are highly realistic, based no doubt on real individuals Higgins encountered on the job, and the cops are nearly as dishonorable as the criminals.

Journalist George Kimball, a sportswriter on the Boston Herald at the time, claimed that Mitchum wanted to meet Whitey Bulger and was warned against it by Higgins.

Howie Carr, a newspaper columnist and radio personality who has written extensively on the Boston underworld, reports that Mitchum dined with Winter and Johnny Martorano (whom Carr described as a co-leader of the Winter Hill gang), a man who has been alleged to have killed the actual probable prototype of Eddie Coyle, on most nights during the filming of the movie.

(Higgins had a character based on Bulger associate Steve "The Rifleman" Flemmi listening to Carr on the radio in his last novel At End of Day.