The Lucky Stiff

John J Malone / Jake & Helene Justus #8 (1945)

Wrongly convicted Anna Marie St. Clair has escaped the electric chair only because the hired gun fronting for the real murderer of Big Joe Childers made an eleventh-hour confession on his own death bed. Now she's playing dead and laying for the lowlife creeps who conspired to get her tried and fried. For help, she turns to John Malone, the one defense lawyer in Chicago who might have gotten her off in spite of everything, if she hadn't put her trust in Big Joe's pals instead. A smitten Malone readily agrees to join in Anna Marie's fun, but the whole haunting affair soon becomes a good deal more complicated. Turns out that Malone's pal, Jake Justus, was an unwilling side party to the Childers murder frame. Helene Justus hasn't been let in on her husband's guilty secret; nevertheless, as usual, she suspects enough to scare up a few complications herself.