Gaunt and evil, like Death bearing a scythe, the lean man stalked the streets of the city. Destruction and a ghastly death followed him like the wake of a derelict ship. Tobacco smoke, spirited liquors, even the tea and coffee brought tens of thousands to a choking, screaming, hideous end. The federal government baffled and clueless, was powerless to act, while the one man who could wrest victory from the arch-plotters was being harried and persecuted by his best friend... With his beloved Nita betrayed into the hands of the killers and he himself a helpless prisoner, how can Richard Wentworth ferret out and kill the mastermind behind the nation’s agony? How can the Spider save thousand of his compatriots from the lean man’s death-toll?