Racket Squad in Action #19

Tiger Jones walks into Max Biswell's boxing operation as a hungry young fighter, impressing the smooth-talking manager enough to land a contract—one he signs without reading. As Tiger's wins pile up, Max sees an opportunity to exploit his newest prospect, pressuring him into throwing his biggest fight for gambling money. But Tiger has a secret agenda: he's been working undercover the whole time, setting up the perfect trap to take down the crooked manager who once destroyed his uncle's career and boxing dreams.

A crooked factory manager's "kickback club" scheme is running smoothly—until an undercover officer named Dave poses as a new hire to investigate George Lang's shakedown operation. With his friend Gil Dowd working inside, Dave closes in on the racket and moves to shut it down before Lang's muscle can silence them both. This is a taut crime story about exposing a boss who preys on working men desperate to keep their jobs.

Down-and-out racketeer Syd Stone, desperate to reclaim his old standing, approaches a caterer with a scheme to extort money by threatening to spoil food deliveries at an important dinner party. Lt. Dolan of the Racket Squad arrives on the scene to break up the attempted shakedown—only to discover that Stone's "brand new angle" is actually an old con that landed him in prison years before, one he keeps cycling back to despite his deteriorated mind.

Ted Novak thinks he's found the perfect racket running an illegal numbers game in a newly developed neighborhood where the big operators haven't yet caught on, pocketing all the profits himself and dismissing his mother's moral warnings. When a ruthless crime boss moves into the territory and demands Ted work as one of his runners instead of keeping his independence, Ted's refusal sets off a dangerous chain of events that forces him to confront just how brutal the underworld really is.

Gaylord Manning has perfected the con artist's ultimate weapon—his charm—using his handsome profile and gentle manner to romance wealthy widows out of their savings, always disappearing once the money is in his pocket. When the Racket Squad warns him that his luck can't hold forever, Manning spots a new prospect: the beautiful and wealthy Maya Monroe, and for the first time, he finds himself genuinely smitten, tempting him to go straight. But Manning's comeuppance arrives in the cruelest way possible when Maya reveals she's been running the exact same con all along—and she's not interested in anything but a clean getaway.