All in the Family

By John Skow

THE DIGGER'S GAME by GEORGE V. HIGGINS 214 pages. Knopf. $5.95.

The best American crime novelist now at work is George V. Higgins, who is also an Assistant U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, a state rich in attorneys and in crime. Higgins' superiority seemed certain enough after The Friends of Eddie Coyle, his first novel, appeared two years ago. The Digger's Game, another wry look at Boston Irish lowlife, is his second try, and it is an even better malefiction than Eddie Coyle. No one else is turning out anything remotely like it in the concrete overshoes line.

Well and good. But who cares who killed Roger Ackroyd? The answer is, more will after they have read Higgins, though one should be careful to point out that a crime novel is hardly Crime and Punishment. It is not a perilous exploration of society's swamps or the deeps of the soul, but a fast ride through the fun house. Scenery is shifted and repainted, old frights are given new faces. The paying customers disembark laughing about something else after the predictable 200 pages, never having been in danger.

At first The Digger's Game seems to follow familiar tracks. It is swift-paced, hard, quickly finished. Yet Higgins' plot exposes character, which deteriorates, producing plot, which further defines character. This describes the intent and achievement, not of a formula thriller, even one that is well written, but of a conventional novel. Of course, one does not want to goad a man who writes well about thugs to write badly about something else. Higgins' most obvious strength, moreover, is a traditional one for crime novelists. His dialogue is brilliant. "All the time, I'm thinking. How do I get out of this? How'd I get into it? Doing something they know better'n something I know. Playing cards. I didn't play cards, fifteen years. I was always getting my brains beat out, playing cards. I don't know cards, cards're not my game. I know sports. I make a buck, it's because I know sports, I'm betting against somebody else, maybe knows sports, don't know sports so good."

That's the Digger, Jerry Doherty. Big, tough, dumb-smart, the owner of a workingmen's bar. A sometime crook who has done time for possession of stolen TV sets. Now he's in trouble. He's flown out to Las Vegas and he's signed $18,000 worth of markers. He doesn't have the money. Digger's immediate problem is the Greek. It is the Greek who must collect the $18,000 plus $400 a week vigorish. He's tough, of course, but the idea of twisting the Digger's arm gives him cold sweats.

When their confrontation comes, the Digger tells the Greek to go climb a tree. But he knows he's going to have to pay anyway because the Greek knows people who can be hired to break other people's knees with baseball bats. He goes to see his brother Paul, a monsignor in Boston, who has helped him out of bad spots before.

Paul Doherty is as big as his brother, a plump priest in a pale yellow Lacoste shirt and white slacks, who is the Digger shifted several degrees in the direction of decency. His speech is the Digger's with the obscenity polished away. Before the Digger puts the bite on, they chat. The Digger admires Paul's Buick, and Paul says he always wanted a Cadillac, and the Digger says Cadillacs are nice.

"Yeah, but I can't buy a Cadillac. The parishioners, they wouldn't mind. Most of them have Cadillacs themselves. But Billy Maloney, sold me the Buick, he'd be angry. And Billy's a good friend of mine. Then there's the chancery. They wouldn't like it. You get yourself a Cadillac, in a way it's sort of like saying 'I've got all I want.'...But then I started looking at those Limiteds."

Sacrificing that new Limited, Father Paul gives his brother $3,000. But he won't mortgage his vacation cottage to raise the remaining $ 15,000. So the Digger decides to remove the $15,000 from a fur-storage warehouse. The caper succeeds, up to a point, and the Digger is able to shut up his wife, who has been muttering and crossing herself, by promising her a trip to San Juan.

There is trouble ahead--he knows it, she knows it, and they are right, because someone has tipped off the federales--but never mind. This perfect small novel ends perfectly, as the Digger, a successful provider heavy with sin and satisfaction, follows his wife upstairs to their bedroom to receive his reward.

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