Racket Squad in Action #20

Dan Blade, a world-weary private detective, finally lands a case with some promise when a prominent jeweler hires him to catch his trusted messenger stealing from jewelry deliveries. As Blade stakes out the suspect and traces each carefully monitored shipment, he discovers the theft is far more ingenious than it first appears—something mechanical is at work that even his close surveillance can't quite expose. With his client's daughter's heart hanging in the balance, Blade must uncover the hidden method before the thief strikes again.

When a well-dressed stranger calling himself Sir Thomas arrives in the resort town of Oceandale, he quickly charms his way into the social circles of respectable citizens—but his charming façade masks something far more sinister. As victims begin discovering they've been swindled out of thousands of dollars through an elaborate con involving a supposedly priceless family heirloom, Captain Drake of the Bunco Squad must piece together the confidence man's scheme to track him down before he disappears. This 1956 crime tale follows the cat-and-mouse game between a master of deception and the law enforcement determined to stop him.

When an American couple arrives in Marseilles, they're duped by a cunning con artist posing as a customs inspector who steals their passports right off the dock—a racket that preys on unsuspecting tourists and feeds a thriving black market in Europe. With help from Chief Inspector Farratt, Mr. and Mrs. Billings work to identify their thief and take down the operation before the criminals can disappear into the underworld.

A ruthless con artist named Basco and his reluctant painter Yates run a heartless scam: targeting grieving widows and families of the recently deceased by claiming the dead relatives had commissioned portraits, then delivering cheap, amateurish work for inflated prices. When Captain Anthony Lane of the Racket Squad discovers the scheme after one widow is fleeced, he sets out to catch Basco in the act—but proving the dead never made any such agreement proves trickier than expected.

A con man peddles what he claims is a stolen luxury watch at a bargain price, betting that a buyer's willingness to make a crooked deal will blind him to the switch—in "The Hot Watch Racket," a sharp lesson in how greed can be the perfect setup for the oldest trick in the book. The story exposes how the con works and why it succeeds so reliably.