Crime Does Not Pay #31

James O'Connor is a ruthless thug with a sharp mind for crime—until his overconfidence lands him in Statesville Penitentiary, where he becomes infamous for his seemingly impossible escapes. Each time authorities recapture him and return him to the prison walls, O'Connor plots his next breakout, leading a cat-and-mouse game between a cunning criminal and the men determined to keep him locked away. This true-crime tale follows a brazen career built on defying what was supposedly escape-proof.

A respected rancher with a comfortable life decides it isn't enough—Albert Rowan hatches a bold plan to rob a Dallas post office, banking on his sterling reputation to keep him above suspicion. When the heist goes sideways and one of his gang members is caught, a single clue threatens to unravel everything and expose Rowan's carefully constructed facade.

Joe Shaik, a brutal Bowery thug with blood on his hands, thinks he's gotten away with murder—until a severed hand discovered at his hideout betrays him to the law. Arrested and sentenced to hang, Shaik makes a desperate escape attempt that turns horrifyingly against him, as the very instrument of his violence becomes the agent of his doom. This gritty true-crime tale shows how even the cleverest crook can't outrun the consequences of his own brutality.

In 1944 Portugal, an undertaker's suspicious handiwork unravels when authorities exhume a body and make a gruesome discovery—launching an investigation that leads police to Don Costello's hidden chamber. What begins as a murder inquiry becomes a descent into the warped obsessions of a man whose macabre hobby has left a trail of 42 desecrated graves.

In 1939, Johnny Waters—rechristened "Brains" Waters—decides it's time to make it big in the crime world, launching a clever robbery at an Edison Company facility in New York. Caught and sentenced to Sing Sing Prison, Waters uses his cunning to position himself in the prison hospital, where he discovers a tunnel that might lead to freedom and plots an elaborate escape with fellow convicts. As the scheme unfolds on the night of April 14th, Waters and his accomplices face off against the law in a desperate bid to break free.

Inside a state prison, Rocky—a hated stool pigeon who has made enemies of his own cellmates—plays drums in the prison orchestra. When Rocky turns up dead during a concert performance of the Romeo and Juliet Overture, a detective must sort through multiple motives and hidden weapons to find the killer hidden in plain sight. Can you solve the mystery before the truth is revealed?