Stories of Crime & Detection Volume Four contains a novel and three short stories:They Can't Hang Me Lucius Marplay has spent twenty years hidden away in an asylum, making countless threats against the four men who took over The Echo, the London newspaper he once owned. A visit from an old friend gives Marplay the chance to escape, and soon he begins a scheme of revenge.

His daughter Joan tries to track him down but is unsuccessful. As the four newspaper men begin to die one by one, can anyone catch this clever murderer - a man capable of vanishing into thin air? They Can’t Hang Me was adapted into the movie The Witness Vanishes (1939).

The Man Who Came Back An escaped convict has a minor road accident and the unexpected happens. Accident An accidental death leads a young couple to act rashly.

Out of the Fog A short story set during Prohibition in the U. S.

JAMES JACK RONALD (1905-1972) was a prolific writer of pulp fiction, mystery stories and dramatic novels. Raised in Glasgow, Ronald moved to Chicago aged seventee 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 Murder in the Family (1938), The Witness Vanishes (1939), and The Suspect (1944). .