Crime Must Pay the Penalty #9

Preston Burke's obsession with becoming a movie star drives him to commit robbery, but a pair of torn gloves lands him in prison—where his delusion only deepens over four years. Released and determined to finance his path to Hollywood by any means necessary, Burke leads a ruthless criminal gang on a spree of violent holdups, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake and earning the grim nickname "the Gold Coin Killer." As authorities close in and his gang questions his sanity, Burke remains convinced that stardom awaits him on the other side of his crimes.

When sixteen-year-old Elmer Hammond, Jr. accidentally damages a rum-runner's boat in 1931, his careless act sets off a chain of events that lands him in the hands of kidnappers—and leaves the New York police powerless to help, since the boy vanished across state lines before federal kidnapping laws existed. Detectives Tom Peters and Hank Reynor volunteer to work the case on their own time, but as they close in on the trail, the criminals devise an ingenious scheme using homing pigeons to collect their ransom, forcing the cops to think bigger than they ever have before. What begins as a revenge plot spirals into a high-stakes game of wits that tests whether brains or determination will prevail.

Two small-time crooks discover they're descendants of the notorious Dennison gang and become obsessed with recreating their ancestors' crime spree—following the same robbery dates and locations from sixty years past. As Red and Pete Larky execute bank heist after heist with eerie precision, federal agents piece together the pattern and set a trap, forcing the brothers into an increasingly desperate situation where superstition collides with the hard reality of the law closing in.

Rex Lewis chases the ultimate thrill—crime itself—abandoning his privileged life in 1901 San Francisco to pursue excitement through whatever means necessary, from prize fighting to jewelry theft. But when a twenty-five-year sentence forces him into Leavenworth, the escape artist discovers that danger and freedom can be found even behind bars, and his willingness to play both sides makes him a target no law enforcement dragnet can contain. This gritty tale charts one man's reckless hunger for kicks and the criminal legacy it carves across decades.