Down Three Dark Streets

An FBI agent based in the Los Angeles field office and someone he was supposed to meet concerning one of his three active cases are both murdered, shot dead. Special agent Frank Pace, chief of the field office, reassigns those three cases to John Ripley - Rip in casual circumstances - the superintendent in charge of criminal cases, not only to continue the work of the FBI, but to discover who the murderer is in the belief that solving the cases will lead to that end. The first case concerns poor working class Vince Angelino, in federal prison for a string of interstate carjackings, Vince professing his innocence while refusing to give up any of the people who tried to hire him as the driver seemingly to protect himself and his innocent blind wife, Julie Angelino. The second concerns an unknown extortionist terrorizing Kate Martell, a fashion buyer, the extortionist demanding the $10,000 life insurance money left to her by her now deceased husband Bill Martell, while threatening to kill her preschool age daughter, Vicki Martell, if she doesn't do so. And the third concerns fugitive Joe Walpo, who is known to have most recently killed a gas station attendant seemingly en route to the Los Angeles area arguably to connect with who is thought to be his girlfriend, Connie Anderson.