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IF "THE MANY DEATHS of the Firefly Brothers" were a woman, I'd ask her to marry me. Every so often I stumble across a read so mesmerizing, it makes me forget about my other literary loves. Thomas Mullen's latest is just such a read.

You're supposed to die when you get Swiss-cheesed by bullets. No one bothered to tell Jason and Whit Fireson, two charismatic bank robbers who could just as easily rob a bank with a smile as a machine gun. Known to the nation as the Firefly Brothers, these gangsters have achieved the kind of iconic status relegated to dime-store pulp fiction.

Heroes in a suffocating political system--the Great Depression serves as the backdrop in this Robin Hood tale--the brothers make every right turn until they find themselves in a police station morgue, bullet holes painted across their chests like freckles. The thing is, they're not really dead or are they? For some mystifying reason, the brothers wake up from their eternal slumber and are afforded another shot at freedom. So starts the provocative plot, one that finds the brothers dodging bullets and death in search of answers.

Thanks to Mullen's immersive writing style--the memorable descriptions seem ripped from the headlines of 1930s rags--"Firefly" leapfrogs its contemporaries. Hands down, this is one heart-pounding work of fiction you shouldn't overlook.

Nicholas Addison Thomas is a freelance writer in Fredericksburg.