Cogan's Trade
Cogan's Trade is a 1974 crime novel by George V. Higgins. The novel was Higgins's third novel centered on crime in Boston neighborhoods, following The Friends of Eddie Coyle and The Digger's Game. In Cogan's Trade, Cogan is a hitman who targets the person responsible for a card-game heist. The person is identified through a second heist and pursued by Cogan, who works for an anonymous benefactor who also has a non-criminal role in society. The 2012 film Killing Them Softly, directed by Andrew Dominik and starring Brad Pitt, is based on the novel. Plot Markie Trattman is the proprietor of a criminal poker ring operating in a New England neighborhood. 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. In the fall of 1974, a man named Johnny "Squirrel" Amato plans to rob Markie's next poker game, anticipating the mafia will blame Markie for the heist. He enlists Frankie, a former business associate, and Russell, an unstable heroin addict, to perform the robbery. Upon completing the crime, Russell travels to Florida. "The driver", an emissary for the