Racket Squad in Action #24

A carnival midway becomes a front for something far more sinister on this 1957 Charlton crime anthology cover, penciled by Bill Molno and inked by Maurice Whitman. A barker in a bold yellow-striped shirt and straw hat mans a roulette-style wheel booth, while a sharp-dressed man in a suit stares back from the crowd with cool, knowing eyes — the tension between them is palpable. Racket Squad in Action promised readers "inside facts from the files" of law enforcement, and this scene of a rigged carnival game delivers exactly that street-level grit.