Will Murray's Pulp Classics #31

The Spider Audiobook #46, The Man Who Ruled in Hell

by Norvell W. Page writing as Grant Stockbridge, read by Nick Santa Maria.

For ten grim years, The Spider battled the Underworld, imprinting his scarlet seal on the bodies of the criminals he slew. No one knew his name. His face was unknown. Pursued by the police, sought by the mob, the Spider crushed crime with a blazing intensity never witnessed before or since. Now he's back with a vengeance in a new series of audiobooks retelling his pulp-pounding exploits, as chronicled by Norvell W. Page, writing as Grant Stockbridge.

Never before or since has there been a hero like him. Driven, hunted, and violently committed to exterminating criminals of all calibers. A self-appointed savior of humanity, driven manic-depressive, and possibly undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, The Spider was known as the Master of Men.

The most compelling of the classic pulp heroes, Richard Wentworth had a fianc?, a coterie of equally committed aides, and a tense relationship with New York Police Commissioner Stanley Kirkpatrick, Wentworth's best friend, but also a dedicated lawman sworn to send The Spider to the electric chair - no matter who he turns out to be.

Garbed in a black silk cloak, slouch hat and wearing an assortment of masks and strange disguises to make him look as fierce as his namesake, the Spider ran roughshod over a vicious legion of thugs and hoodlums, leaving behind him a trail of cold corpses branded by his calling card, a scarlet spider burned into their foreheads.

After three years of writing The Spider series, Norvell Page suddenly dropped out in the Fall of 1936. No one is sure why this was, but nervous strain due to overwork, along with making unforgiving monthly deadlines, are the likeliest explanations for Page abandoning the Spider series.

For several months, Emile C. Tepperman ghosted the series as Grant Stock...