Threat Of The Spider by Michael P Spradlin

Oh, huh, I didn’t realize that this second book in The Web Of The Spider series would have a different protagonist than the first one, but it makes sense!

In Rise Of The Spider, our narrator was young Rolf, who watched with growing horror as the Nazi Party’s hatefulness infiltrated not only his beloved hometown of Heroldsberg, but also seduced his older brother Romer. Rolf and his equally horrified father chased after Romer when the latter ran away to attend a large Nazi rally in Nuremberg, but were unsuccessful in bringing him home.

Threat Of The Spider is told from the point of view of Rolf’s best friend, the sharp-witted and brave — almost to the point of recklessness — Ansel Becker. He’s inherited his courage and outspokenness from his father, a reporter for the Nuremberg Zeitgeist. Heinrich Becker has recently persuaded HQ to let him open up a branch office in Heroldsberg, so he can report on the growing influence and perfidy of the Nazis in their small but representative town. The entire Becker family loathes a movement that they correctly see as capitalizing on people’s desperation and unhappiness to incite violence instead of actually helping the people. The loathing is mutual, as evidenced by the brick lobbed through their front window before the book even begins.

The local police are useless, especially since Police Chief Muller has recently been promoted to head of the Heroldsberg branch of the Nazi Party. Spearheaded by Hans, one of the first Hitler Youth to darken their doorsteps, the local Nazis continue to harass the Beckers, even when the much younger Ansel and his friends routinely prove their match, if not their superior.

Things come to a head when it’s announced that one of Hitler’s top lieutenants, Heinrich Himmler, is coming to Heroldsberg to give a big speech. Ansel’s dad is fully ready to confront Himmler and take his party and policies to task, but suddenly disappears. The older Becker has been known to go missing for prolonged periods while chasing a story, but always manages to get a message back to his family within two or three days as to his whereabouts and/or wellbeing. As the days wear on, however, with no word from his father, Ansel and his mother become fearful that something bad has happened.

Ansel has always been a big fan of the Dirk Goodly, Boy Detective series, so decides that it’s time to use the detective skills he’s learned from his fictional hero to locate his dad and bring him home. But life isn’t like the novels. Will he and his friends be able to find his dad without anyone getting seriously hurt?

This slender middle grade book ends on a serious downer of a cliffhanger, as Ansel and his friends continue to come to grips with the growing influence of the Nazi Party. Despite the boys’ courage and wit, the sheer dumb violence and power hunger of the Nazis is overwhelming. Additionally, Rolf and his father’s solution to the ongoing pressure they’re facing from the Nazis made me feel terribly sad, even as I worry for Ansel and the rest of their friends.

The worst part, ofc, is knowing not only the horrors that are about to come to these brave kids and their families, but also how absolutely fucking ridiculous it is that the United States is on the brink of repeating Germany’s catastrophe, but for even stupider reasons. The German economy actually was in dire shape before Hitler took over: ours was perfectly fine but is now on the verge of being thrown into the toilet. It genuinely freaks me out that the German judicial system actually managed to imprison Hitler for his crimes before he rose to power, whereas ours has been so compromised already that the Felon-In-Chief has never seen the inside of a jail cell.

It’s so important that books like this one keep being written and distributed, in hopes that we can avert the repetition of history, that we can do better by being better informed and less fearful of all the bogeymen that fascists use to cow populaces into submission. What’s happening in US politics now is not normal. Books like this reinforce not only that truth, but the fact that we can all fight back in our small ways, that a slide into totalitarianism isn’t inevitable as long as we have enough people with the courage and moral fiber to resist. It sucks that we even have to do this — I, for one, have never wanted to live in interesting times — but Mr Spradlin is doing the necessary work of reminding us not only that we can resist, but that there are millions of other people just like us, who are willing to fight hate with truth and decency. We’re the heroes: not the fascists, never the Nazis. We can learn from the past and make things better, with the help of books like this one.

Threat Of The Spider by Michael P Spradlin will be published tomorrow June 24 2025 by Margaret K McElderry Books and is available from all good booksellers, including