Time Thief

Last weekend I was looking for a nice quick read to while away some hours in the evenings.  I grabbed my copy of the Library of America volume, Crime Stories: American Noir of the 1930s and 40s.  Next up in the book was Edward Anderson's Thieves Like Us.  I finally forced myself to finish the story on Wednesday night.  Obviously, it wasn't a good book to pass the time on a Friday or Saturday night.  Indeed, it was terribly disappointing.  The LOA volume has 6 novels in it--the idea that this was one of the best six Noir novels published in the 20 years covered by the volume is a bit hard to accept.  So, how did this novel get selected?  I wondered, so I looked it up on Wikipedia--a great source for figuring out things like "Why would anyone like this book?"  The Wikipedia entry is a placeholder--in other words, nobody in Wikipedia World has even wanted to bother writing a plot summary.  So herewith is the plot summary:  A guy gets out of prison, gets together with a couple of other criminals and  robs a few banks.  He also hooks up with a girl.  Everyone dies in the end.  But, the book isn't as interesting as the summary.