You cannot outrun a horror within you. When police officer Christian Kraus attempts to arrest a notorious serial killer who has been cutting a swathe of terror across London, he is unwittingly exposed to something beyond his worst nightmares – a murderous parasitic creature that lives inside a human host. As the psychological and physical strain of the creature takes hold, Christian finds himself on the run, wanted for murders he did not commit, hunted by an unidentified military organisation, his only hope his best friend and a stranger known as the Professor. But the vicious organism within him has a terrifying life cycle he knows nothing about, and it threatens not only his own survival, but the survival of millions.

This early work by Bertram Mitford was originally published in 1896 and we are now republishing it as part of our Cryptofiction Classics series. 'The Sign of the Spider' is a novel about a man who leaves his wife to go and earn his fortune in South Africa but runs into trouble with a native tribe. The Cryptofiction Classics series contains a collection of wonderful stories from some of the greatest authors in the genre, including Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jack London. From its roots in cryptozoology, this genre features bizarre, fantastical, and often terrifying tales of mythical and legendary creatures. Whether it be giant spiders, werewolves, lake monsters, or dinosaurs, the Cryptofiction Classics series offers a fantastic introduction to the world of weird creatures in fiction.