Crime Does Not Pay #54

Peter Treadway starts out as a clumsy, nervous petty criminal in 1919 Chicago, but under the tutelage of Mr. Crime himself, he gradually sharpens his technique—surviving a botched robbery at a society party, learning the bootlegging trade, and absorbing hard lessons from his mentors about how to operate in the underworld. By 1932, as he reaches the peak of his criminal career, Treadway believes he's engineered the perfect crime, but what unfolds next becomes one of the most shocking tales of criminal violence ever recorded.

A clever criminal with a razor-sharp wit and an even sharper blade, Clarence McQueen commits a brutal murder in Somersworth, New Hampshire, then embarks on an elaborate disguise to escape—but a series of small mistakes and unlucky encounters gradually unravel the plan. Watch as a cunning scheme falls apart in this true-crime tale of deception and narrow escapes that ultimately leads to justice catching up with this decidedly ungentlemanly criminal.

Mike Malloy's reputation as an indestructible drunk makes him the perfect mark for a scheme: a bartender and his accomplices take out a life insurance policy on him, then set about poisoning him with increasingly bizarre concoctions—benzine, embalming fluid, rat poison, carbolic acid—only to watch in disbelief as Malloy shrugs off each attempt and comes back for another drink. As the desperate conspirators exhaust their arsenal of toxins and traps, their growing frustration becomes as dark and twisted as their original plot.