BY THOMAS MULLEN (4th Estate £12.99)

The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers by Thomas Mullen

Jason and Whit Fireson, the notorious bank-robbing duo known as The Firefly Brothers, wake up on cold slabs in the police morgue. Riddled with bullet wounds they should be dead, but like the invincible heroes of a hopeful folk tale, mortality seems to have by-passed the gun-toting siblings.

Set in the American Midwest, in the middle of the Depression, Mullen's novel has all the hallmarks of a classic caper. There's a fractious but charismatic criminal partnership and a girlfriend straight out of Raymond Chandler - the smoulderingly dangerous Darcy, who has a rich daddy, an independent streak and who is kidnapped by rogues unknown to add an extra frisson of danger to an already incident-rich plot.

There are bumbling cops, accomplices with unlikely names (Brick Bat and Chance McGill), rapacious bankers, a tenacious FBI agent, car chases, heists and shoot-outs which fail to kill the duo again and again.

Mullen marries this fantastical aspect of the story to an incredibly moving depiction of the suffering of ordinary people in the grip of harsh economical realities - its resonance with contemporary financial woes is unmistakeable - and it's this which lends a stark immediacy to the bullets and the bank busts.

Thomas Mullen: The Many Deaths Of The Firefly Brothers