Delaware Behaving Badly is a gripping, true-crime-inflected history of the First State's darker moments-scandals, betrayals, and criminal exploits that once made headlines but have since faded from public memory. Drawing on newspaper accounts, court records, and archival materials, author Dave Tabler uncovers stories that range from oyster pirate skirmishes and Prohibition-era rumrunning to political corruption, violent revenge, and fraudulent wartime schemes.
The book brings to life the eccentric figures and forgotten corners of Delaware's past with scene-driven storytelling and deep research. Among the cases covered: a 19th-century embezzler who vanished with bank funds and turned up in Havana; a Prohibition enforcer accused of moonlighting as a bootlegger; a serial predator released on furlough who assaulted again; and a bookie war that upended Wilmington's underworld. Each chapter presents a standalone narrative, but together they form a mosaic of lawlessness, defiance, and the uneasy intersection between crime and power.
Avoiding myth and conjecture, Tabler grounds his accounts in documented fact, often quoting directly from contemporary sources to preserve the raw tone and urgency of the times. Though the crimes differ in scope and era, they all reveal something essential about Delaware's legal system, social tensions, and the limits of justice.
Meticulously curated and written in a crisp, journalistic style, Delaware Behaving Badly does not seek moral closure or tidy resolutions. Instead, it invites readers to confront the discomforting truth that bad behavior-official and unofficial-has always found its place even in the quietest corners of America. This is Delaware history stripped of its polish and presented with an unflinching eye.
Ten year old Dave Tabler decided he was going to read the ‘R’ volume from the family’s World Book Encyclopedia set over summer vacation. He never made it from beginning to end. He did, however, become interested in Norman Rockwell, rare-earth elements, and Run for the Roses.
Tabler’s father encouraged him to try his hand at taking pictures with the family camera. With visions of Rockwell dancing in his head, Tabler press-ganged his younger brother into wearing a straw hat and sitting next to a stream barefoot with a homemade fishing pole in his hand. The resulting image was terrible.
Dave Tabler went on to earn degrees in art history and photojournalism despite being told he needed a ‘Plan B.'
Fresh out of college, Tabler contributed the photography for “The Illustrated History of American Civil War Relics,” which taught him how to work with museum curators, collectors, and white cotton gloves. He met a man in the Shenandoah Valley who played the musical saw, a Knoxville fellow who specialized in collecting barbed wire, and Tom Dickey, brother of the man who wrote ‘Deliverance.’
In 2006 Tabler circled back to these earlier encounters with Appalachian culture as an idea for a blog. AppalachianHistory.net today reaches 375,000 readers a year.
Dave Tabler moved to Delaware in 2010 and became smitten with its rich past. He no longer copies Norman Rockwell, but his experience working with curators and collectors came in handy when he got the urge to photograph a love letter to Delaware’s early heritage. This may be the start of something.
What literary pilgrimages have you gone on?
The summer between my freshman and sophomore years in
college I decided I was going to fill in the gaps in my high school reading. I had
spent far too much time in high school only reading the CliffNotes versions of
things, and regretted that I hadn’t really absorbed much from the books I was
supposed to be reading deeply. I tracked down a copy of the Harvard Great Books
list. I made it through Dante’s Inferno, Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography,
and Madame Bovary. I started in on The Red and The Black, but it
just didn’t engage me, and I bailed on the project at that point.
What is the first book that made you cry?
Hands down: The Runaway Bunny. It made me cry as a kid, because some part of me needed to hear that no matter how far I ran, someone would always come find me. That's a pretty powerful thing to hand a child. Then years later I decided to read it to my 10-year-old niece, and I could barely get through it with dry eyes, but for completely different reasons. This time I was the one doing the chasing, not the running. That book hits you twice, and it hits you harder the second time.
Does writing energize or exhaust you?
It depends a lot on the environment. If I’m under a tight deadline,
if I’ve hit a wall in a piece I’m working on, if Idon’t have a quiet place to
write, then sure, it’s exhausting. Most of the time it’s energizing. I’m an
early bird: I get up at 4:30 most mornings, walk the dog for 20 minutes to get
the blood moving, drink a cup of coffee, then sit down to write for about 2
hours before breakfast. My wife is a late sleeper, so the house is dark, quiet.
My writing desk is my world when I’m sitting there. I’m not thinking about
chores, or bills, or anything but writing. Lately I’ve been playing Tibetan
bell music in the background, and that helps reinforce the meditative state
that works best for me when writing.
What is your writing Kryptonite?
A chaotic environment. I’m not one who can bang out a piece
with a laptop perched on my knees in a noisy airport terminal, for example.
Lord knows I’ve tried!
Did you ever consider writing under a pseudonym?
Never. I always felt a pseudonym was a protective device in
a situation where use of the author’s real name would cause problems. I’m not
hiding from anyone or anything. Also, I don’t write in radically different
voices, another instance where a pseudonym might be useful. A Dave Tabler book
is pretty clearly a Dave Tabler book.
What other authors are you friends with, and how do they
help you become a better writer?
I don’t hang out with writers. I’m not hostile to doing so,
but I’vejust always been kind of a lone wolf. I have a tiny circle of friends,
and I kind of enjoythe fact that, not being writers,they don’t ‘talk shop’
about writing.
Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying
to build a body of work with connections between each book?
Definitely the latter. I’ve published 5 books to date,
another releases in June 2026, and I’m working on two beyond that. They all
have ‘Delaware’ in the title. They’re all history books, but different topics. So,
in that sense, they can certainly stand on their own. I lived in NYC for
decades but was never drawn to writing about it. Why? Because zillions of
authors write about New York! I’m drawn to the offbeat, the underdog, the path
less traveled. In the case of my Delaware body of work, I love when my readers respond
“Oh! I never knew that!” even if they grew UP in the state.
What authors did you dislike at first but grew into?
C.S. Lewis. For some reason my first encounter with him was
NOT the Narnia Chronicles, but the Screwtape Letters. He struck
me as a ponderous professor lost in a cloud of abstract sermonizing. And THEN I
came across The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, and fell under his
spell.
What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?
I think Stephen Crane’s The
Red Badge of Courage has fallen out of favor, but for me it’s one of the
most compelling war stories ever written. I’m working on a new Civil War
history at the moment, and I re-read Red Badge just recently to revisit
if there was inspiration to be had. I wasn’t disappointed. What’s always
intrigued me about Crane and his novel is that he never fought in that war
himself. Yet he somehow
got closer to the interior truth of War than most writers who actually lived
through one. Crane wasn't really writing about the Civil War, though. He was
writing about fear, ego, and the gap between the story we tell ourselves and
the truth of what we actually did.
As a writer, what would you choose as
your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
Ha! Never thought about that. Well, I guess an owl. As I get
older, I hope I’m getting wiser. No guarantee of that, of course. But it’s an
ideal I strive for.
How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?
Just two. The Civil War book, and a book about the evolution
of the hotel industry. I’m not one to start and stop numerous projects at once.
For my personality, that would simply scatter too much energy. When I commit to
a project, I want to dive deep. But I always want to be out ahead of the book
release curve, so that I’m not caught flat footed with nothing published for
long periods. So two books ahead of whatever I’m working on seems to be a good
match for me.
What did you edit out of this book?
So much. So very much. This is why we writers need editors.
For the crime book in particular, I had huge numbers of stories that I felt
could have been added. But my editors (I work with two) both pointed out that
if a specific crime story didn’t move the overall narrative arc along, it did
not earn a place in the book. I’ve learned to respect their judgement.
If you didn’t write, what would you do for work?
I worked in ad space sales for years, because for me as for most writers, writing doesn’t pay the bills. But it’s not what I want to be remembered for. It was my day job.
Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people
will find?
No. I’m not that kind of a writer. I want to state my case very clearly to the reader, not play games.
What is your favorite childhood book?
Treasure Island. A map with an X on it. An island. No parents. No school. No
obligations. Just danger, and treasure! I feel like Robert Lewis Stevenson
understood so clearly that boys don't just want adventure, they want a
contained world where the rules are clear and the rewards are real.
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