Crime Must Pay the Penalty #46

A jewelry agent named Roger M. Whittaker arrives at Mr. Risk's office with a rare blue diamond and a desperate problem, but the next morning a stranger appears claiming to pick it up on Whittaker's behalf. When Risk refuses and later finds a dead man in Whittaker's hotel room, he realizes one of them is an impostor—and now he's caught between criminals, a missing diamond, and a mystery that keeps getting darker. With only his wits and his fists, Risk must untangle the double identity before the criminals hunting the stone decide he's no longer useful.

When special investigator "Poke" Bancroft stumbles upon a gangland shooting, he recovers a cheap mechanical doll that becomes the target of every thug in the city—including a mysterious criminal with questions about where it's hidden. As one killer after another closes in, Bancroft finds himself caught between a grieving woman, corrupt hoods, and the terrible secret the doll apparently holds, racing to stay alive long enough to uncover why a five-and-dime trinket is worth killing for.

When a fugitive from Paradise Sanitarium shows up in Dan Fury's backyard, she brings a wild accusation: her guardian, the seemingly respectable Gerald Winston Ambers, is actually the mysterious crime boss known as Mr. "X." Dan's instincts tell him something doesn't add up, and a chance discovery at the sanitarium itself pushes him to act—but taking on this case means outwitting a dangerous adversary who won't hesitate to silence the truth. Can the private investigator expose the real identity hiding behind Ambers' respectable façade, or will this case become his last?