THE SPIDER STRIKES

Things take a turn for a trio of friends enjoying a pleasant stay in a mountain cabin when a squad of Hitler Youth members show up.

Bookending his tale with fictive news stories of an attempted assassination and a bank bombing in the once-peaceful town of Heroldsberg, Spradlin continues to record rising tides of anxiety, violence, and antisemitism in Hitler’s increasingly authoritarian Germany. Young Rolf and narrator Joshua manage with difficulty to pry their friend Ansel from the side of his badly wounded journalist father for a vacation trip to Austria—only to see more signs of poverty and unrest than ever, to be refused service in a store because Joshua is Jewish, and to run into Rolf’s estranged older brother, Romer, a vocal member of Hitler Youth. The prospect of a week in the mountains is appealing but hardly have they settled into their isolated cabin than the arrival of a gang of uniformed hoodlums sent by Romer to harass them touches off an escalating flurry of pranks and counter-pranks. Ultimately, the incident turns life-threatening, though events here feel less harsh compared with previous volumes. Once more, Spradlin sets the scene effectively with grim depictions of Nazi-era Europe. In previous episodes the author added an “It Could Happen Here” warning that is absent this time around, but perceptive readers will draw parallels between history and current events.

Ominously topical.