Return to 1937, when America is turning to the pulps for relief from the Depression, and meet Walter Gibson, the mind behind "The Shadow," and his rival for the top-selling spot on the nation's newsstands, Lester Dent, creator of "Doc Savage." The murder of Gibson's friend H. P. Lovecraft -- victim of a mysterious death that literally makes the skin crawl -- is about to bring these two writers face to face with a peril sprung from the pulps.