Ends And Means OUTLAWS

By R.Z. Sheppard

Much has been made of George Higgins' gift of gab and nose for original sin. Much should be made. Since The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1972), the lawyer- novelist has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is more than a prolific genre writer about Boston's hoods and pols. His 13 novels have moved steadily beyond a cynical cop's-eye view toward a harsh realism that is informed by experience, reflection and cauterizing wit.

Outlaws is about the evils that men and women do in the name of ideology, patriotism and self-interest. It is also about character as asserted through language. The average tough-guy writer usually relies on a single voice to convey a mannered and often sappy stoicism. Higgins can call up a variety of convincing tones and attitudes that give texture and complexity to his narrative.

At his best, as in Outlaws, he drives the story with dialogue. His new cast is large but not cumbersome. Sixties radicals, raffish police, a showstopping judge, foxy lawyers, willing victims, conniving matrons, and a computer that tracks a baseball trading game and sniffs out international fugitives -- all fill a generous time frame.

The action starts in 1970 when heavily armed urban guerrillas rob a Brink's armored truck at a Massachusetts shopping mall. Two years later the merry band empties a Wells Fargo van in the same general area. "We're not dealing here & with a group of retards, my friends," says Inspector John D. Richards of the state police. "These are sharp minds we've got on our hands, making these withdrawals."

Especially that of Samuel Tibbetts, summa cum laude from Stanford with extracurricular honors in Marxism. Tibbetts is a study in sociopathology, a graphic mug shot of the intellectual as free radical: corrosive, amoral, tyrannical and remorseless. He is not above ordering the deaths of colleagues he feels do not toe his party line. Tibbetts and his followers are eventually captured in 1978 and brought to trial in Boston for murder.

The judicial scenes benefit greatly from Higgins' experience as a lawyer and former U.S. Attorney. He avoids the cliches of courtroom drama to focus on the presiding judge and, through him, the vitality of the legal system. Judge Howard ("Black") Bart is no abstract idealist; with blunt example and sarcasm he repeatedly makes the point that separating the form from the substance of the law is dangerous to the health of the Republic.

Others in Higgins' liberally pleated plot are not so fastidious about rules and regulations. Tibbetts' co-defendants get long prison sentences, but the mastermind is found innocent by reason of insanity. A few years in a state hospital and he is once again stirring up trouble and profits as an arms dealer hiding in Morocco. By this time his former lover is the mistress of his former prosecutor.

There are other complications about bloodlines, old-boy and old-girl networks, the FBI and a touring orchestra backed by the CIA. All end in moral muddles that dramatically underscore the dilemma of ends and means. Higgins is no prude; he understands that evil can be a matter of degree, and he can live with the camel's nose in the tent. But in Outlaws he worries about the beast that decides to enter broadside.