Crime Must Pay the Penalty #17

"Cut" Lewis, gangland's most ruthless extortionist, has built a vicious empire by bleeding the city's bookmakers dry—demanding protection money from men who can't turn to the law for help. But his years of merciless preying have earned him deadly enemies, and when a group of desperate bookies decide they've had enough, they plan an ambush at the Blue Cedars nightclub that could spell the end of his reign of terror. Watch as the hunter becomes the hunted in this hard-boiled tale of vengeance and the wages of cruelty.

When country-bred farmers the Briggs Brothers stumble into the bootlegging trade with their homemade whiskey, they catch the eye of a powerful city racketeer named Pete Kalta—who's built his empire on fear and firepower, and won't tolerate competition. What starts as an opportunity to escape the hardscrabble life of farming quickly spirals into an escalating war between Kalta's machine-gun operation and the brothers' desperate determination to hold their ground. As bodies pile up and the violence intensifies, the gangsters search for a way to break the stubborn country boys—and discover an unexpected weakness that could tip the scales.

Oscar Riddle, the stingiest criminal on the San Francisco waterfront, watches his stolen fortune go up in smoke when his front shop burns down in 1936—only to rebuild his wealth through ruthless crime and an iron grip on expenses. When the mob boss Big Ed refuses to bankroll his gambling debts, Oscar sees his chance to seize power, setting the stage for a reign where even bullets have a price tag. But cutting corners in the underworld proves as dangerous as it is profitable, and Oscar's miserliness may yet be the very thing that catches up with him.

Willie Flagg, an ice cream truck driver hungry for danger, stumbles into a holdup and discovers a talent for high-speed getaways that makes him crave bigger thrills—eventually leading him to organize increasingly reckless crimes across the country, from armored tank heists to nightclub robberies, all orchestrated for the sheer excitement of outrunning the law. Driven by an obsession with speed and risk that pushes his gang to the breaking point, Flagg escalates from holdups to hot-rod racing to daring capers in California, turning every job into a personal game against the police.