How to interlink table insertions

When an entry is inserted in one table (let's call it "table 1"), I want an entry to be inserted into another table as well (let's call it "table 2") (I actually want to have data inserted into one of three potential tables depending on certain information, which is why it's not all under one table). From what I understand, the best way to do this is to create an observer to listen for the "creating/created" events and insert a row into "table 2" when that event occurs. I'm hoping there's an easy way to ensure that if the insertion I control for "table 2" fails, I can prevent the entry to "table 1" which is occuring under the "creating" event from being created as well. Is there an ideal way to do this?