As the titles suggests, Thieves Like Us is about thieves: three bank robbers. At first successful, they buy nice clothes, guns, and faster cars and read about themselves in the newspapers. The central character of the three thieves, Bowie, was serving time for a murder he committed when only 16. Now on the run, he falls in love with Keechie, the cousin of one of his partners, who joins him.

As with Hungry Men, Thieves Like Us was gritty realism. Prohibition may have been repealed, but the Great Depression unleashed an infamous crime spree. Notorious gangsters like Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Bonnie and Clyde made headlines, while across America desperate men felt driven to crime. Anderson interviewed bank robbers in Huntsville prison, noting their speech patterns and recording their stories and perspectives. The result is rich characterizations like T-Dub, who provides the novel’s title when he refers to bankers, politicians and the like as “just thieves like us” and uses colourful idioms like “it’s raining cats and nigger babies.” This depiction of people drawn into illegal activities by a combination of circumstances and their own attitudes is what makes Thieves Like Us a classic hardboiled proletariat novel.