I stumbled upon a gem of a book a few weeks ago and devoured it while on vacation. Turns out it has local connections.

Anticipating vacation, I went online to check whether my favorite sportswriter, Leigh Montville, formerly of The Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated, had written anything new. I don't ordinarily read sports books, but Montville's style is such a pleasure that I'll consider reading anything he writes (Montville's most recent books are biographies of Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Dale Earnhardt).

So I was happy to discover that he had indeed written something fairly new. "The Mysterious Montague: A True Tale of Hollywood, Golf and Armed Robbery" was published last year. I grabbed a copy.

It tells the story of a young man from Syracuse, LaVerne Moore, who was suspected of having been part of a group of four who robbed an Adirondack restaurant in 1930. One man at the restaurant was severely beaten.

The robbers had two getaway cars with two men in each car. One of the robbers was killed that night in a crash after being chased by state troopers. In the other car, Moore (allegedly) was the passenger and a man from Troy was the driver. They were stopped at a roadblock, but talked their way out of suspicion.

Based on evidence later found in the car, Moore was suspected of taking part in the heist. But he had disappeared. Vanished.

Moore took off for Hollywood, Calif., where he would gain local fame — after changing his name to John Montague — as an unbeatable golfer. He played with the likes of Oliver Hardy (from Laurel & Hardy), Bing Crosby, Howard Hughes and W.C. Fields. He was also a trickster. He beat Crosby, who was a good player, using only a rake, a shovel and a baseball bat.

But there was one thing that was odd about Montague. He shied away from publicity. He never entered tournaments. He rufused to let his picture be taken.

But his golfing legend grew, and the most famous sportswriter of the era, Grantland Rice, soon traveled from New York City to see the player in person. He was impressed. Rice, who had seen all of the golfing greats of the day, labeled Montague "the greatest golfer in the world." Soon, publications such as Time and Newsweek were writing about Montague, and authorities back in Elizabethtown, N.Y., became suspicious after seeing his picture. Could this be the fugitive LaVerne Moore we've been seeking for seven years, they wondered.

Montague was extradicted to New York to stand trial in Elizabethtown. Hordes of national media descended on the small town in what was called the trial of its day.

Montague was represented by an Albany attorney. There are several references to Mechanicville, where the four men initially met on the night of the robbery. At one point in the book, Montague is dropped off at the Schenectady train station. A photo in the book shows Montague meeting the young Bing Crosby at the Saratoga Springs train station. Crosby was in town to see his horses run. And, of course, there are numerous mentions of Adirondack towns in the Lake Placid region.

Much of the early part of the book describes the early days of Hollywood and the film industry, and that in itself is an interesting read.