SEATTLE  James Fogle was in prison when a critically acclaimed movie based on his novel “Drugstore Cowboy” was released in 1989. Starring Matt Dillon and directed by Gus Van Sant, the film portrayed a fumbling band of thieves and addicts who roamed the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s stealing drugs and money from pharmacies.

You can still find the movie on DVD and the book on Amazon. And after his arrest this week, you can again find Mr. Fogle behind bars.

The novelist, now 73, was ordered held in $500,000 bail here on Thursday, two days after the police say he and another man, both armed, tried to steal narcotics from a pharmacy in the Seattle suburbs, binding employees’ hands with plastic ties and locking them in a storeroom.

Image James Fogle, 73, author of “Drugstore Cowboy,” in court in Seattle for a bail hearing on a robbery charge. Credit... Stuart Isett for The New York Times

Mr. Fogle, hooded and wearing a pink bandana over his face while holding trash cans filled with drugs in both hands, was arrested as he walked out the back door of the Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy on a busy street in Redmond, Wash., about 9 p.m. on Tuesday, the police said. He and another man, Shannon Benn, 45, surrendered quietly.