Crime Does Not Pay #44

Charles Biro's cover for issue #44 pulls no punches: a chaotic street scene outside Mercy Hospital captures armed gangsters in a red car opening fire on white-coated orderlies struggling to carry a wounded man, the whole tableau bristling with the pulpy energy that made Crime Does Not Pay the go-to true-crime title of 1946. The book boasts a full 68 pages of "All True Crime Stories," and the cover copy teases encounters with a murderess claiming 40 victims, the most shot-at gangster around, and a bludgeon killer — plus a sixteen-page surprise inside. With stories like "The True Story of 'Legs' Diamond" on the bill, this is a fine snapshot of Lev Gleason's crime comics at their most relentlessly gripping.