The Spider, Master of Men! #48: Machine Guns Over the White House

by Grant Stockbridge, Norvell W. Page, Don Hutchison

Over the Capitol hung that suicide Senator's warning of destruction and anarchy to come when he was gone — of a fair land of freemen to suffer shame and degradation, a nation to be torn apart by the hounds of hell! Upon the very Senate doors hammered those yogi-mesmerized mobs who sought to make a mad man America's ruler. And Richard Wentworth, whose eyes had gazed upon a written message from the honored dead, must don the Spider's cloak of darkness to fight off these Storm Troops of Satan who would not rest content until Washington was a bloody shambles and the Chief Executive, himself, hung from a lonely gallows!

Genres: Pulp, Thriller

Paperback

First published January 1, 1937

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the forty-eighth of the one-hundred and eighteen Spider novels that appeared in the pulp magazine from 1933-'43 It's from the September, 1937 issue, and was written by Norvell W. Page, the best and most prolific of the writers who worked in the series under the house pseudonym Grant Stockbridge. Most of the Spider stories featured Richard Wentworth opposing an evil criminal as his alter-ego The Spider, with a little help from his friends Jenkyns, Jackson, Ram Singh, and his fiancée, the lovely Nita Van Sloan, but in this one Page provides a much broader canvas starting with the complete overthrow of the national government. It's a very different kind of Spider story, much more like what readers expected in Operator 5 adventures. The idea of a mob storming the Capitol Building was pretty much an unthinkable fantasy back then... There are some very harrowing moments (at one point, for example, Nita is hung from an aeroplane and Wentworth is threatened that she'll be used to knock down the antenna if he doesn't cancel a radio address), but (spoiler alert!) all is set right in the end, of course. In fact, this one serves as something of a reboot to the series because the President himself publicly pardons the Spider from all previous allegations and accusations of any wrongdoing and proclaims that he is the Sword of Justice. Page's near-manic style of writing kept the Spider among the most popular of the pulp heroes.

[ISMOTU · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kind of a shocking story to read in the current political climate but quite fascinating. Definitely a departure from the typical criminal conspiracies usually battled by the Master of Men. As always though, the Spider delivers a rollicking pulp adventure.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have great affection for The Spider. One of the most successful (read: lucrative) pulp heroes of the thirties and forties, The Spider AKA Richard Wentworth is different from a lot of other pulp heroes-he is just a man. Doc Savage was raised to be physically and mentally superhuman and The Shadow possesses unique mental abilities. Wentworth is just one tough and quick witted hombre. His battles are fought in constant desperation-he is usually outgunned and overmatched. Wentworth is typically shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, strangled, electrocuted, defenestrated, etc etc. His adventures are very much a series of crises that progressively worsen. In Machine Guns Over the White House (from 1937) a demagogue manages to stage a coup and take over the US government. In an odd turn of events his name has only five letters in it, and he unhesitatingly foments violence by his supporters against anyone who disagrees with him. Sound familiar? The action is fast and furious as always.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

The level of action in these books, the ones written by Norvell Page that is, is just amazing. He is relentless.

[Ronald]

read SOMETIME in 2010

[Jeff J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun pulp novel featuring the Spider. Non-stop action from beginning to end when a coup topples the US Government.