The Agent - Hardcover

Higgins, George V.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151003572 ISBN 13: 9780151003570

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1999

Synopsis

By the time Lieutenant Inspector Francis Clay arrives on the scene of the murder of Alexander Drouhin, head of one of the nation's leading sports agencies, he discovers that the gritty sport agent's friends and enemies all seem to have both motives and alibis. Tour.

About this title

About the Author

George V. Higgins teaches creative writing at Boston University.

Reviews

A riveting look at the world of big-time sports provides veteran storyteller Higgins (A Change of Gravity) another opportunity to show off his skills at writing the most addictive dialogue since John O'Hara. Alexander Drouhin is a 62-year-old Boston lawyer at the top of the heap of sports agents. Business brings in millions a year, and Alex?juggling athletes, team owners, general managers and the press?lives a princely life. Alex has two ex-wives, two distant daughters, an almost live-in boyfriend (undiscovered yet by the tabs) and near-insatiable greed. A third of the way into the book?after he neatly extracts a budding NFL star from a possibly messy scandal?Alex is found dead in his palatial country estate. Massachusetts State Police Lieutenant Frank Clay, a recent widower, must unravel the puzzle. Through Higgins's trademark dialogues (or monologues), and without many visual clues, the reader gleans vivid depictions of his prolix characters, with glimpses of the horrors of modern celebrityhood, pro gambling and pro sex in a suburb of Boston. There are plenty of cops-and-lawyers stories and wicked, offhand humor. Drouhin's boyfriend never appears, but if that's a flaw, it's minor. (Is it possible the maestro can't do an antique dealer's voice?) The talk may go on a bit, but it is to be hoped that Higgins never makes a long story short. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Higgins has become justly famous for the way he builds character almost solely through the speaking voice--not staccato dialogue, full of thrusts and counterthrusts, but a series of extended monologues during which a character comes alive as much through intonation as through the words he or she speaks. And yet, as true as that is, not enough attention has been paid to the content of those remarkable monologues. Whether from the mouths of politicians attempting to consolidate their already considerable power, or low-level attorneys hoping to acquire more, or petty crooks pretending to have clout they don't, the topic under discussion can almost always be reduced to the same common denominator: acquiring, protecting, or relinquishing power. In the process of attempting to do those things, crimes occur, and a new power struggle takes place: cops, utterly without access to personal power, asserting control over the powerful by ferreting out facts. The pattern holds in Higgins' latest, but the world in which the power is contested is a new one: sports agents, vying with one another and with corporate behemoths like Nike for the right to profit from the image of athletes. Higgins lets superagent Alexander Drouhin, whose empire may be about to crumble, talk in the first half of the book, then kills him and lets his underlings talk in the second half, as the Columbo-like cop sorts out who did what. Higgins allows his characters to pepper their talk with a little too much backstory--one agent explaining the business to another agent--but we hardly mind the occasional note of artificiality because the talk is so utterly fascinating. Here is the detail, the flesh and bone, behind the glamorous Jerry McGuire. Higgins really does show us the money--where it comes from, how it is accumulated, how it is siphoned off and into whose hands. Yes, we read Higgins for the voices, but this time don't forget the content. Bill Ott

This book is essential not only for the many fans of Higgins (A Change of Gravity, Holt, 1997), but for any kid who dreams of a sports career. The agent, Alex Drouhin, protects his clients from everyone who would prey on them, from reporters to folks who would steal their underwear and sell it to sports memorabilia collectors. When Drouhin is murdered, his partners, servants, and clients are all suspects. The story is told in an unusual way?several characters reveal plots and subplots in extended monologs, at the same time providing a wealth of information about the life of a professional athlete. Recommended for popular fiction collections.?Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Univ. Lib., Davenport, IA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0151003572
• ISBN 13: 9780151003570
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 341