Lock and the Key

THE LOCK AND THE KEY

Tommy Dancer is an expert lock and key man. He can pick any lock, copy any key. Which is how he meets Betty Targ, who needs a new key to her Cadillac when someone steals hers. Herbie the Lugan spots Tommy at work and introduces him to Trent, who is looking for a good key man. He’s got a project that takes talent and a cool head. Trent can tell that Tommy’s got both.

Now Tommy finds himself involved in a scheme to rob a gangster’s safety deposit box. Trouble is, Betty’s ex-boyfriend, Faraday, is also involved. And there’s no love lost between he and Tommy. They both want Betty. And they both want the contents of that box. But neither of them can have both.

Frank Gruber was (officially) born February 2, 1904 in Elmer, Minnesota, though he and his family originally immigrated from Hungary. Wanting to be a writer from an early age, he kept submitting stories until his first sale in 1927. He made his living editing farm newspapers until the Depression, then moved to New York City in 1934. Gruber experienced some lean times until he finally started writing for the pulp magazine, Operator #5, where his career took off. In 1942 he moved to Hollywood. At the height of his writing career, he was turning out westerns, mysteries, romance and science fiction as well as a variety of TV and movie scripts. Gruber created three TV series—Tales of Wells Fargo, The Texan and Shotgun Slade—and had a dozen of his novels turned into films. He wrote an autobiography about his writer’s life as The Pulp Jungle in 1967. Gruber died on December 9, 1969 in Santa Monica, California.