The Spider: Citadel of Hell

by Grant Stockbridge

Manhattan faces starvation when a subversive syndicate takes the supply and demand theory to merciless new heights. Now Richard Wentworth must unmask the Food Destroyers - and escape the roaming mobs of hunger-crazed New Yorkers screaming "Lynch the Spider!"

Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Citadel of Hell was the Spider novel from the March, 1934 issue of the magazine. It was written by Norvell W. Page, one of the great pulp writers who wrote the majority of Dick's adventures, under the Grant Stockbridge house name. It's a fairly standard example of the run with Richard Wentworth, the Spider, opposing a madman who's destroying the country's food supply in order to make prices rise so that he can profit. There were a couple of points that I didn't enjoy, such as Dick leaving Nita in jail for a month and taking three weeks off to recover from an injury while thousands are starving, but it's not a bad story. Some nice bits with Commisioner Kirkpatrick, and the terrible D.A. Glastonbury. Some very graphic fire-bombing scenes. Page wrote the Spider the way Steve Gerber wrote The Defenders: at a breakneck pace, and he occasionally got lost in his own narratives, but he was one of the best of his day. This edition also includes two (non-Wentworth) stories from the magazine, Killer's Knout by Anson Hatch which isn't too bad, and The Standing Corpse by G.T. Fleming Roberts, which is.