Beadle's Dime Library No. 700

Catalog Description *Crushing the Crook Combination: A Shady Side Romance of the Great City* by Albert W. Aiken, author of the Joe Phenix detective series. In this serial installment, veteran private detective Joe Phenix, working Wall Street, recognizes an old acquaintance—the disreputable Captain Gorden Murphy—now posing as a respectable banker under the alias Murphy, partnered with Levi Benhanan in a bucket-shop operation. Detective Fitzgerald of the Central Office confirms the business is likely fraudulent. Murphy, whom Phenix believes orchestrated a mysterious murder at Tarrytown (involving a woman's death, her husband Trevanion's suicide, and the death of an accomplice called Dangerous Blacksmith Peter Slam), approaches Phenix in a bar demanding to know what was said about him. Their confrontation centers on whether suspicion without proof justifies warning other detectives. Phenix argues it does; Murphy protests the lack of evidence, their exchange growing increasingly hostile.