Crime Must Pay the Penalty #20

Charlie Voss, a small-time stick-up artist, stumbles upon a lucrative scheme when he discovers a fake charity racket operating out of a dingy office—and decides to muscle in on the operation himself. After a botched robbery of the charity headquarters leaves him wounded, he pivots to running his own phony orphanage fund drive, raking in thousands with a crew of smooth-talking solicitors. As the money pours in and Voss grows confident in his new enterprise, forces beyond his control begin to close in.

Wimpy Bremmer dreams of rising through the criminal ranks—and when he's released from five years in prison, he gets his chance, joining car thief Rafe Miguels' hot-car operation and proving himself a natural "rustler" with raw talent and nerve. But Wimpy's ambition soon outgrows his place in the organization, and his hunger for control sets him on a collision course with those around him.

A desperate small-timer takes a shortcut to easy money when his wife demands a better life, falling into a criminal partnership that spirals from petty robberies to big-time mob work—until federal agents close in on his hideout. As Mike Moody flees through the Wisconsin woods, his luck and his choices catch up with him in ways he never anticipated. Written by an actual case file, "Triggerman for a Blonde" traces one man's descent from struggling worker to wanted criminal, driven by the woman who pushes him deeper into the life.

Bob Nixon's resentment of the wealthy festers into something far darker when a childhood humiliation sets him on a path toward crime, eventually making him the brains behind the notorious "Society Gang" targeting the rich. After years of high-stakes robberies in the suburbs, Nixon abandons his crew and reinvents himself under an assumed identity in a respectable neighborhood, determined to leave his criminal past behind. But his new life of wealth and respectability masks something far more sinister lurking beneath the surface.