A DRUG ON THE MARKET

The final adventure of science fiction's most adroit conman! His career cut short by the death of the pulps, interstellar grifter Leland Hale makes his final bow in this brain-puzzling tale of a futuristic cons and their marks. From the text: "The Galaxy is big, and, as far as the Interstellar Police of a century ago were concerned, too damned big. With five billion major wanted criminals moving about the Galaxy at any one time, plus sixty or seventy billion stay-at-homes, finding or tracking one man was not an easy job by a long shot. Even a normally intelligent criminal had a pretty good chance of eluding capture for years, and with a man like Leland Hale, the odds against nabbing him were even higher. They couldn’t possibly keep tabs on every crook in the known Universe, so it should not be considered surprising that The Planetary Police of the world Giffer did not immediately leap from their swivel chairs when, as a matter of routine, they received the passenger list on the luxury liner Bencolin when it docked at the major spaceport of the planet on what was, in that hemisphere, a fine summer day." Reprinted from the Feb. 1960 Fantastic Universe. Cover art: Laura Givens