COMMENT | When the bylines of James Ritchie and Rudy Beltran - his crime desk chief - frequently hit the front page of the New Straits Times, I was still in secondary school in the 70s.

I loved the stories they wrote - stories that blazed across the front page under bold, commanding headlines. As a secondary schoolboy, I was already delving into the detective thrillers of James Hadley Chase, Agatha Christie, and Earl Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason series.

For some reason, I connected the NST crime desk reporters with the characters in the stories I read - like detective Paul Drake from the Perry Mason series, Lieutenant Traag from James Hadley Chase, and Inspector Poirot from the Agatha Christie stable.

As crime reporters, Ritchie and Beltran brought readers to the frontlines of fear, exposing the truth behind notorious figures like Botak Chin, delving into gangland and Chinese triad stories, and being among the first reporters on the Jean Perera Sinnappa murder scene.

Ritchie and Beltran had a rare instinct for chasing leads.

I was hooked on...