Middlesboro businessman and musician Larry Cadle will be the featured guest at the open house at the Bell County Historical Society on Friday, beginning at 4 p.m.

Cadle will describe his upbringing on a tobacco farm, his family,and artistic endeavors.

He wrote and recently published “Dead Reckoning,” a novel set in the 1950s and describing life in Middlesboro and rural areas. Many will recognize characters and places incorporated into the story.

Copies will be available for purchase and signing. The principal character Hi Sexton, after serving in the Korean War, returns to his parents’ farm in Claiborne County. With a keen ear for the rural dialect, Cadle tells about Hi’s life and loves including a “circuit girl” he met at the Majestic Hotel on 19th Street.

Dr. Kenneth Smith, in his recent review in The Gateway, stated that the novel “provides a plot which holds the reader firmly as he navigates by dead reckoning between two love experiences.”

Bob Vaughn describes it as “having a very in riguing plot.”

The public is welcome to the open house and admission is free. Refreshments will be served.

You may pick up a copy of Cadle’s book, the recently published Bell County Pictorial History, The Magic City or other local works from the museum bookstore for Christmas giving.