Thieves Like Us

Thieves Like Us, first published in 1937, is a Depression-era noir novel centering on three small-time criminals, who escape from jail and begin a spree of Texas bank-robbing. The youngest of the three, Bowie, falls in love with the cousin of one of the older criminals, and a romance develops but is doomed to fail in the face of the relentless manhunt by the authorities. Thieves Like Us was adapted for the screen by Nicholas Ray in 1948 as They Live by Night and in 1973 by Robert Altman under its original title.