THREAT OF THE SPIDER

Inspired by his favorite fictional detective, 12-year-old Ansel investigates when his journalist father disappears just before a scheduled visit from Nazi kingpin Heinrich Himmler.

People commonly believe that “it can’t happen here,” Spradlin writes meaningfully, as he did in his series opener (which centered on Ansel’s friend Rolf). “It can.” As the novel opens, a rock painted with the word “Judenliebhaber” (“Jew lover”) is thrown through Ansel’s window—just a hint of what’s to come. Ansel’s Bavarian town is gripped by rising tides of fear and excitement as the coming of Hitler’s lieutenant brings a flood of Nazi recruits and propaganda about lying journalists. When his defiantly anti-Nazi father drops out of sight, the bookish lad takes cues from the exploits of teen detective Dirk Goodly to seek out his whereabouts. Has he been kidnapped? Or worse? With help from Rolf and other allies, Ansel fearlessly antagonizes creepy, spiderlike Hans, too, even though the Hitler Youth leader has paramilitary brownshirt thugs at his back now and is certain to retaliate. Things seem hopeless, though along with perceptive efforts to explain how ordinary citizens could come to condone monsters, the author does try to lighten the load with banter and Ansel’s frequent “Unassailable Facts of Life,” such as “#33: When the wise man flees, he leaves his pants behind.” Still, readers conscious of current events will have no trouble catching the episode’s ominous topicality.

Grim and plausible.