Title: Circle of Death
Air Date: November 28, 1937
Plot summary: A bomber has been wreaking havoc downtown, and the city is terrified. The police can make no progress. Lamont Cranston decides that this is a job for The Shadow, so, despite Margo Lane's misgivings, he arranges a rendezvous.
The Shadow badgers Commissioner Weston into daring the bomber to show up at the "central arcade" at 6 pm. The arcade is a crowded area, so the police are unable to tell who among the many is the man they seek—but with his psychic powers, The Shadow can. It turns out that the bomber is Anton Spivak, a night watchman. He is quite insane and is setting off bombs and killing people for a spectacularly mundane reason: he hates crowds.
Tropes:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Spivak uses these for his bombings. It turns out there are underground passageways that provide access below traffic lights. Spivak goes there and, when cars are stopped at red lights, he reaches up from below and hooks bundles of dynamite to them. The dynamite explodes minutes later, when the cars are downtown, with Spivak hidden safely away.
- Beneath Notice: Spivak, a night watchman in the downtown district, easily goes through a police checkpoint.
- Extra! Extra! Read All About It!: The typical newsboy shouts out the newspaper headline in which The Shadow challenges the bomber to show up downtown at 6 pm.
- Invisibility: One of The Shadow's go-to maneuvers, but here used to trick the bad guy into giving himself up. The Shadow clouds Anton's mind and demonstrates his invisibility, then says he will make Anton invisible so Anton can go downtown and set off his bomb. Of course, he does not make Anton invisible, so after Anton climbs out of the sewer the police see him and arrest him.
- Narrating the Obvious: A near-obligatory trope in radio drama, and particularly egregious in this episode, when one cop has to tell the cop standing next to him that they just saw a car explode.
- Mad Bomber: Anton Spivak, who is setting off bombs and killing people downtown, because he hates crowds.
- Misanthrope Supreme: Does Anton Spivak the mad bomber have any political goal? Nope, he just hates crowds, people pushing and shoving him, so he's mounting a campaign of terror to make the crowds disperse.
- Non-Indicative Name: "Circle of Death" is a random title that has nothing to do with the story.
