Sutton spent a lot of his life in jail, and while the Moehringer works up some fine set pieces for Sutton behind bars, you can't help but wish that the writer at least could be set free from what becomes a wearying cycle. Just when his fiction is gaining momentum, the plot has to follow Sutton back to prison again.

Unfortunately, Moehringer, a lovely writer, seems almost hemmed in by the facts of Sutton's life. He never actually said he robbed banks 'because that's where the money is,' but he was a genuine folk hero. Sutton wore disguises, earning the sobriquet 'The Actor.' He also took pains to make certain no one got hurt during his robberies, and that, too, contributed to his legend. A boy from Brooklyn's Irish Town, he couldn't get work during the Great Depression and took to relieving banks of their money. Throughout his career, Sutton stole more than $2 million. The agenda was to drive around New York City visiting scenes from Sutton's crimes. Moehringer, whose memoir 'The Tender Bar' was a fine piece of work, opens this novel on the day in 1969 when the then 68-year-old Sutton was set free from Attica to be met by a reporter and photographer. 'Sutton' is the imagined life of the last century's most popular bank robbers who actually went so far as to develop entertaining patter to keep captive tellers and customers at ease while the robbery was underway. It's a morality tale, but in keeping with the best of those, it's complex and layered and damnably entertaining, too. 'Live by Night' belongs somewhere in a realm where Mario Puzo meets the Bible. By his father's calculation, one day he must pay.

Live by night lehane