Crime and Justice #7

This non-fiction feature examines the brutal trial methods practiced in 12th-century England, where the accused faced ordeals by cold water, hot iron, and boiling water—each designed to reveal guilt or innocence through physical endurance and the state of resulting wounds. Dennis Laugen illustrates how these ritualistic tests, preceded by fasting and prayer, operated under the prevailing belief that divine intervention would protect the innocent. A sobering look at how justice was administered when faith in miracles trumped evidence.

When two cold-blooded killers commit what they believe is the perfect crime—a double murder on a remote road—they don't account for Mr. and Mrs. Chase, the amateur sleuths who happen upon the scene and recognize one of the victims. Now the Chases are drawn into a dangerous investigation where the killers' own miscalculations threaten to unravel their scheme, and everyone involved discovers that a fortune in diamonds isn't quite what it seems.

When a pair of armored-car guards are ambushed and murdered during what the killers believe is their perfect heist, a determined police captain turns the very truck that was robbed into an instrument of retribution—tracing the gangsters to their hideout through a tire print and a single fingerprint. As Captain Meaners closes in with a reputation for meticulous detective work, the men responsible for the cold-blooded killing learn that crime has a way of catching up to the guilty.

When a crime wave sweeps the city with uncanny precision, veteran reporter Joe Ryan of the City Press smells something bigger than random gang violence—and the kidnapping of a brilliant nuclear physicist from the university campus might be the thread that unravels the whole operation. Racing against both the police and the clock, Ryan digs into a mystery where every clue points to a calculating mastermind orchestrating the underworld's every move. Can he expose the truth before the criminals strike again?