“The Spider,” from Pulpville Press, reprints two stories by Frederick C. Painton, an unknown to me pulp writer. Pulpville has a couple of other volumes of works by him as well.
This volume reprints two stories from early issues of All Detective Magazine from Dell (1933-34) that star a villain known as The Spider. No, this is not the more well-known Spider from Popular Publications, nor the villain created by Johnston McCulley.
This was a short-lived series (unclear if it was intended to continue) that had this different villain. As the villain seem to die at the end of each story, but his body wasn’t found, they had an option to continue the series (same as with the first Dr. Death series from All Detective Magazine later in 1934).
Who is The Spider? Well, we learn he is the secret leader of a band of beggars known as the “Brotherhood of the Spider.” Opposing him is the nominative hero of these stories, Capt. Gary Galt, former soldier and member of the U.S. Secret Service. A love interest is present in Janice Marsh.
The first story deals with murder and betrayal. The second one is not as interesting. Could be that this wasn’t as successful, and soon replaced by Lester Dent‘s short-lived Crime Spectacularist stories and Dr. Death. See my prior postings on these two.
The cover is not from any issue of All Detective Magazine to my knowledge. Sadly, unlike Altus Press‘ great reprints, there is no forward or information on these stories or the author. Pulpville Press is kind of a bargain-basement POD pulp reprint house. But they do some reprints that others aren’t doing, so they are worth checking out.
