The Rat Racket

"The Rat Racket" by David H. Keller, M.D. is a thrilling story that falls within the realm of crime fiction, likely written in the early 20th century. The plot centers around the alarming rise of racketeering through a bizarre and destructive method involving rats, threatening various businesses in a bustling metropolis. With Keller's clever narrative, the book explores themes of corruption, fear, and the unexpected consequences of a criminal underworld. The storyline unfolds through the experiences of Richard Moyer and Paul Perkins, owners of a grocery business besieged by a racketeering gang demanding payment for "protection" from rats. As the menace grows, they find themselves ensnared in a web of fear and financial extortion, leading to devastating consequences for their city and its citizens. The arrival of the enigmatic Winifred Willowby offers a glimmer of hope, as he devises a plan to combat the rat-induced havoc. However, the plan's execution leads to an unexpected and chaotic culmination at a gathering of gangsters, resulting in a dramatic turn of events that underscores the story's chilling warning about the depths of human greed and the perils of underestimating one’s adversaries. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

David Henry Keller was an American writer who worked for pulp magazines in the mid-twentieth century, in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. He was also a psychiatrist and physician to shell-shocked soldiers during World War I and World War II, and his experience treating mentally ill people is evident in some of his writing, which contains references to mental disorders. He initially wrote short stories as a hobby and published his first science fiction story in Amazing Stories in 1928. He continued to work as a psychiatrist while publishing over sixty short stories in science fiction and horror genres. Technically, his stories were not well-written, but focused on the emotional aspects of imaginative situations, which was unusual for stories at the time.