All-Famous Police Cases #7

Paul Jawarski and his gang—the notorious Flatheads—turn to increasingly brutal crimes to score big money, starting with a mine office robbery and escalating to a daring armored car heist using explosives. When the law closes in and one member cracks under interrogation, the gang's loyalty fractures, setting the stage for a deadly reckoning. "Killer at Heart" tracks how ambition and violence create their own justice in this hard-boiled true-crime tale from 1952.

When idealistic defense lawyer Ty Roper takes on an apparently hopeless case to help the poor, he discovers that his accused client is guilty—and blackmails him into becoming the first of many "clients" forced to repay their legal debt through crime. Behind the scenes of a respectable law practice hides a brilliant criminal mastermind who orchestrates an escalating wave of robberies while maintaining his spotless public reputation. As the crimes grow bolder and deadlier, Roper's web of control begins to fray when one of his reluctant criminals is caught red-handed.

A smuggler masquerading as a concert violinist, Guido Marcanni, is found strangled at Karnakee Hall, and Inspector Layson discovers a pawn ticket that hints at something far larger than a simple murder—a diamond smuggling operation hidden within the strings themselves. As Layson closes in on the pawn shop and the crooks behind the scheme, he finds himself trapped in a deadly ambush, forced to navigate a violent endgame where the real value of that violin becomes clear. In this 1952 crime tale, a detective's cunning and quick thinking are the only things standing between justice and a very permanent silence.

A cunning thief known as "Raffles" has been systematically robbing wealthy homes on Long Island for years, always leaving his calling card: a cut telephone wire. When the police devise an electric trap using a switchboard system to detect severed wires in the neighborhood, they finally get their chance to stop him. "Trapped!!" shows how one brilliant innovation turns the tables on a criminal who thought himself untouchable.