Beggarman, Thief
Irwin Shaw was born in New York in 1913 and began his literary career writing short stories, and plays for the stage and radio.  During World War Two he served in North Africa, the Middle East and all over Europe, and it was after the war that he achieved widespread acclaim with his first novel, The Young Lions.  Irwin Shaw wrote more than a dozen novels, all of which became worldwide bestsellers.  A number of his books have also found success as feature films and TV serials, and they have been translated into twenty languages.  Irwin Shaw died in 1984.