Through a gangster’s eyes

Sutton, by J R Moehringer, HarperCollins, $34.99, 334 pages. Reviewed by Nich Campbell.

If there ever was a time period in which I would love to have lived it would be 1930s New York. Specifically, being a gangster in 1930s New York with their tailored suits, tommy guns and dames. It would have been pretty cool.

Thankfully, as I am sure I would have been a terrible gangster, I don’t have to and can leave it up to the fiction writers to fulfil my dreams.

J R Moehringer in his novel Sutton has created a satisfying version of the familiar gangster world and a fascinating gangster to go with it.

Sutton tells the story of William ‘‘The Actor’’ Sutton, a notorious gangster and bank robber. Nicknamed for his penchant of dressing up as a policeman during robberies, this novel tells a fictionalised account of the single interview the real Sutton gave after his release. For a man who was seen to be one of America’s Most Wanted, the resulting article was disappointing in its scope and underwhelming in its scandal. Moehringer has taken the article as a launching point for his story and fleshed out the bones of the life of Sutton and circumstances of the interview itself.

Sutton takes a rookie journalist and a photographer on a road trip around New York, chasing the history and events that made up Sutton’s life. He follows the moments from his past that shaped who he was and created his legend.

Moehringer is a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, was the writer behind Andre Agassi’s Open and he is a writer of some real ability. His character of Sutton is sympathetic, the robberies exciting and his New York, if you will excuse a cliche, a character all its own.

The novel does not shy away from Sutton’s criminality, but it certainly recalls a time of the superstar gangster. Sutton only robbed from banks and, like a 1930s Robin Hood, was all the more popular for it. A thrilling read.