Murder for Cash

<p><em>'If that ain't jest like life!King Kennedy goin' fifteen hundred miles t' git shot with his own gun.'</em></p><p></p><p><em>Stories of Crime & Detection Volume Nine</em> contains a novel and a novelette:</p><p></p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong>Murder for Cash (The Fatal .45)</strong><em> </em> When aged millionaire rancher King Kennedy is murdered in Chicago his old friend Sleepy Gus Williams and Kennedy's son Dolf hunt the killers. They are soon identified as the well-known racketeers Whispering Benny and The Carnation Kid who will bump off anyone for money. But who inherits Kennedy's millions? The murder weapon a Colt .45 is disposed of in the river after the shooting but it harbours an important secret and doesn't stay submerged for long. An inventive gangster thriller. </p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong>The Man Who Made Monsters</strong><em> </em>This pulp thriller tells a Fellinian horror story of kidnapping plastic surgery and madness.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p><strong>JAMES JACK RONALD </strong>(1905-1972) was a prolific writer of pulp fiction mystery stories and dramatic novels. Raised in Glasgow Ronald moved to Chicago aged seventeen to 'earn his fortune' later returning to the UK to pursue a writing career. His early works were serializations and short stories syndicated in newspapers and magazines around the world. Ronald wrote under a number of pseudonyms including Michael Crombie Kirk Wales Peter Gale Mark Ellison and Kenneth Streeter among others. Several books were adapted into films including <em>Murder in the Family </em>(1938) <em>The Witness Vanishes </em>(1939) and <em>The Suspect </em>(1944).</p>