Si Tanner Chronicles

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The publications and research of Catherine Holder Spude.

The Si Tanner Chronicles
by Catherine Holder Spude

Sin and Grace is Book One of the Si Tanner Chronicles.

I plan four more books in the series. They will all take place in Skagway, Alaska, all based on true stories, and all featuring Si Tanner as a strong, secondary character.

Chris Shea

BOOK THREE will involve some the Tlingit Indian families of Skagway, and their involvement with the murders of Bert and Florence Horton in 1899. Tanner was the U.S. Deputy Marshal at the time, and it caused a big panic, the townspeople thinking that the local Indians were going to be attacking the town. It's a great story, and I want to tell it from the viewpoint of the Tlingits.

BOOK FOUR will feature Zinjiro Ikura, a Japanese merchant in Skagway. His foster father, Frank Keelar, was a powerful city councilman during the gold rush. Keelar was responsible for the establishment of what was known as " Yokohama Town," a Japanese enclave that functioned as part of the sporting district. Ikura became a respectable citizen of the community at a time when Japanese were very much discriminated against, and when Chinese were actively driven out of town whenever one of them tried to get a job. But during the 1920's, as the pioneers of the gold rush days died off and left town, even Ikuta lost status, and had to leave his beloved town. It's a story of fierce determination in face of discrimination.

BOOK FIVE will feature Kitty Faith, another madam in town. Madam Faith, the richest woman in Skagway, knew as much about every man's business as Si Tanner, and it was to Kitty that Si turned when the city's problems became the thorniest.

Book Two of the Si Tanner Chronicles will be

THE UNTERRIFIED: A HISTORICAL NOVEL OF POLITICAL INTRIGUE IN SKAGWAY, ALASKA

What happens when a True Hero steps out of Nowhere to save the Little Guy, gives his all, then disappears in obscurity with no one but another True Hero to recognize his worth?

A Legend is born.

This Legend’s time is Come.

In January 1898, Chris Shea goes to the Far North to dig for gold. He makes it as far as Skagway, Alaska, where he tends bar, plays baseball, and jokes with the men. He pours their drinks, collects their dimes, stops their fights and laughs at their high jinks. When they need someone they can depend on, he stands at their front, speaking loud and clear whatever message they tell him needs to be said.

Without hardly thinking about it, Shea, a skinny Irishman with a gift for politics, charms Skagway’s working class men and alienates the conservative businessmen and the biggest business in town: the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad. Chris overthrows City Hall and forces out the most powerful man in Skagway, John Troy, editor of the daily newspaper. The Juneau newspapers call him “King of Skagway.”

In a well-coordinated backlash, the middle class businessmen bent on regaining political power, the corporate owners of the White Pass railroad, and moral reformers ashamed of a saloon-owner mayor join forces to bring the King to his knees.

And not even Si Tanner, the man who truly owns Skagway, the man who bought and paid for her with his soul in the days that he hunted down the Soapy Smith gang can save him.

Read Chapter One Here

Read Chapter Fifteen Here

Kitty Faith