The Fall of the House of Spade
By
Kenneth Tucker

SUGGESTED BY WESTERN KENTUCKY HISTORY

In 1913, several brutal murders occurred in the small town of Canton, Kentucky. Quentin Spade, the scion of a wealthy family—intellectual, respected, artistic, reserved—was accused of being a psychotic killer—but was he? In the early Twenty-First Century, Tiffany Gray, a Murray State college student, becomes obsessed with the century old murders and attempts to discover what happened. The Fall of the House of Spade is a fast-paced novel which moves back and forth from past to present. It presents a story of greed, hatred, political treachery, vengeance, violence, and love, set against the decline of Canton as a center of riverboat trade and wealth.

CANTON HOTEL IN CANTON, KY

HISTORY OF THE CANTON HOTEL

KENNETH TUCKER'S COMMENTS ON HIS NOVEL

The novel had a rather unusual beginning. Back during the Christmas break of 1984, I read Frank Spiering’s Lizzie, the Story of Lizzie Borden. Spiering’s work is intriguing, well-researched, but offers an astounding and, I think, implausible solution to this enduring murder mystery. Right away I began wondering whether Spiering’s theory could be applied to another murder, a fictional one. The characters of a mother and son soon began developing in my mind; the basic plot quickly formed itself, but nearly twenty-five years elapsed before I could give the characters, in Shakespeare’s words, “a local habitation and a name” Meanwhile, bits of local history and lore began attaching themselves to my basic plot, modifying it. The tale became set in Western Kentucky. Still, at times I wondered whether I would ever write this tale that off and on obsessed me. Then, in the fall of 2005, I knew the story was ready to be told. Strangely enough, it flowed rather easily.

"Kenneth Tucker...finds a way to show the western Kentucky of yesteryear as its own verion of 'the dark and bloody ground.'"
--Steve Flairty, Kentucky Monthly Magazine.

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Kenneth Tucker: Author of

Books

Eliot Ness and the Untouchables:
The Historical Reality
and
the Film and Television Depictions
, 2nd ed.
Soon to be available as an ebook from Google and other ebook readers


A Kentucky Colonel in Darkest Africa
Currently available or soon to be available as an ebook for Kindle and other ebook readers


The Old Lit Professor’s Book of Favorite Readings
Currently available or soon to be available as an ebook for Kindle and other ebook readers


I Pray the Lord My Soul to Keep
Currently available or soon to be available as an ebook for Kindle and other ebook readers


The Madonna of Shadows and Darkness
Currently available or soon to be available as an ebook for Kindle and other ebook readers


A Spider Spinning Daydreams (short story)


Wilderness of Tigers:
A Novel of the Harpe Brothers and Frontier Violence
Currently available or soon to be available as an ebook for Kindle and other ebook readers


The Grave and the Figure Eight: A Myth Reborn

Currently available or soon to be available as an ebook for Kindle and other ebook readers


A Kentucky Colonel in King Arthur's Court and The Swamp Maiden of Venus.

Currently available or soon to be available as an ebook for Kindle and other ebook readers


Shakespeare and Jungian Typology. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003.

Currently available as a Google ebook and soon to be available for other ebook readers


Eliot Ness and the Untouchables. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2000.

John Marston, A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1985. [Out of Print]

A Bibliography of Writings by and About John Ford and Cyril Tourneur. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1975. [Out of Print]

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