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.
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.
Like my other novels, this one is available at the Murray State Bookstore and on line at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, and Borders.com.
A Kentucky Colonel in King Arthur's Court and The Swamp Maiden of Venus.
