Tar Man
By (Author) Dale Lucha
BookBaby
BookBaby
13th June 2025
United States
General
Fiction
Paperback
300
Width 152mm, Height 228mm, Spine 17mm
480g
"Every culture has a monster living in the closet, a terror lurking in darkness, a creature hiding under the bed. For the children of Odyssey, those things had a name. It was Hanley Krall, the Tar Man."
TAR MAN
The land across the river from the residential community of Odyssey holds a deadly secret, and the McDibble family's claim to the land, held by the last McDibble, is put at risk.
Over the past three years, at least three people have disappeared from Morris County. All may have been murdered by a serial killer, but police can't find evidence to let them arrest the guilty party.
Political ambitions result in two more deaths, and the suspect in the three disappearances is finally taken into custody.
A newly appointed prosecuting attorney with a quirky, animal loving secretary, works with a beautiful public defender to uncover the facts. Together they wrestle the age-old dilemma, "does the end justify the means"
The common threads that tie it all together are a recently appointed judge, an ambitious barmaid at a local watering hole, and the man the residents of Morris County call Tar Man.
Tar Man, is based in fictitious Morris County, West Virginia, the location of the highly rated novel Both Sides of Bare Tree Mountain. Most of the story takes place during the decade of the 1940s. The novel is populated with original and memorable characters, retro-ambiance, suspense, intrigue, dirty politics, murder, a raging hurricane, a budding romance, a dying love affair, and surprise twists that hide in plain sight and make you flinch when they leap at you from the shadows. It's all woven into an evolving, compelling story that will make you turn just one more page before turning off the light and trying to go to sleep.
All that remained was a shadow in the night, a noise in the attic, a glimpse of movement in a dark room, a speck of light reflecting from imaginary teeth and caught in the corner of a child's eye after a parent turned off the bedroom light and said, "The Tar Man will get you if you don't behave."
Dale Lucha was born in Logan County, West Virginia and grew up in the southern coalfields of the state during the 1950s and 1960s. He and his wife Sandi still make their home in the hills. A third generation coal miner, Lucha worked in the coal industry for forty-three years in a career that grew from a menial clerical job to managerial and executive positions with several major U.S. coal companies. He ultimately became owner of an international management consulting firm. Tar Man is Lucha's second published novel.