Crime Must Pay the Penalty #6

Basil "The Owl" Banghart cuts a violent swath through the criminal underworld—from bootlegging runs and prison breaks to becoming Roger Touhy's ruthless trigger man in 1930s Chicago—but the F.B.I.'s relentless pursuit finally closes in. This true crime story traces how a cunning escape artist and cold-blooded killer earned his fearsome reputation, only to discover that outrunning the law has its limits.

When a ruthless gunman named John Selman murders the sheriff of El Paso and assumes his badge, he hatches a scheme to work both sides of the law—partnering with outlaws while posing as their lawman hunter. But his greed and carelessness with stolen evidence from a bank robbery he orchestrates sets the citizens' committee on his trail, forcing a final reckoning in the streets of Texas.

A diner waitress with dreams of furs and jewels meets Glenn Dague, a smooth-talking gambler, and their whirlwind romance leads them down a dark path of armed robbery and murder across the country. When a cop falls to Irene's gun during a routine traffic stop, the two become the most wanted fugitives in the West, hunted relentlessly by law enforcement determined to bring them to justice. Their partnership born of desperation and ambition spirals into an increasingly desperate flight from an unstoppable manhunt.

Alexander Tardy is a ruthless criminal with an insatiable appetite for cruelty—a man who claws his way aboard the merchant vessel *Relentless* under false pretenses, then methodically eliminates those who stand in his way. When circumstances land him work as a ship's doctor aboard the *Regulator*, Tardy hatches a sinister scheme to poison passengers and rob their corpses, but his greed and savagery finally catch up with him. This tale of a predator undone by his own vicious nature shows how even the cruelest heart cannot escape justice forever.