This is the story that inspired and kicked off the Stainless Steel Rat series of stories and novels by Harry Harrison. A slippery con man and thief, frustrating every police force on every planet for years, finally meets a worthy adversary in the Special Corps. Slippery Jim deGriz, the Stainless Steel Rat himself, goes on to have many adventures but this is the first...and the last in a way. After this, his cunning and crooked mind is put to the bigger task of saving the universe from itself. Which he does with zest, self interest and sense of fun that describe the Stainless Steel Rat. (Summary by phil chenevert)
Chapters
From LibriVox, read by volunteers and in the public domain. LibriVox page (opens librivox.org), the text (opens gutenberg.org), all files on the Internet Archive (opens archive.org).