CUP OF COFFEE:

Note from the webmaster:  Congratulations!  You've found the special page that I put into the initial roll-out of the newly redesigned LarryKarp.com.  While much of this website is presented to you from a very "official" perspective, I wanted to create a page where the author's voice was clearly featured.  Larry Karp is very personable, a hell of a storyteller and he has such a distinct "voice" that it seemed only fair to give you, the dedicated fan (or lucky image click-er), a chance to virtually sit down to a cup of coffee with him--without any editor, save himself, getting in the way.

I also happen to know that Larry enjoys answering reader-posed questions when he can--especially when those questions are about his latest work.  Perhaps Larry will answer some of your questions here, about his new book, The Ragtime Kid.  For now, let's just savor an earlier draft of Larry's biography--written by the author himself, in a much more familiar tone than the mini-biography you may have read elsewhere on this site. 

The Author:

"I've lived in Seattle for more than three decades, but spent my impressionable years in and around New York City. I was one of those kids in love with words, reading novels during math class, writing my roommate's weekly themes just for the hell of it, paging through the dictionary during lunchtime to find interesting words and their meanings. But in those days it took a braver kid than I to tell his parents he wanted to earn his living as a writer, so I went to medical school and eventually became a specialist in high risk pregnancy, labor and delivery care. Interesting work, and I gave it my best shot for nearly 25 years.

 

In 1995 I left medical practice - time to write books for other people to read during math class. You write what you know and what you like, so I moved into an imaginary New York antiques and collectibles world and became friends with Dr. Thomas Purdue, New Yorker, neurologist, music box enthusiast. Gradually, Thomas introduced me to his wife Sarah and his pals: antiques picker Broadway Schwartz, music box restorer Charles O'Shacker, antiques dealer Frank (the Crank) Maar, music box dealer Sophie Soleski, shady but helpful British art and antiques maven Al Resford...and many others. Then someone shot and killed Harry Hardwick, the world's most prominent collector of mechanical musical antiques, and Thomas, with his well-developed, if quirky, sense of right and wrong (not to mention the fact that ownership of a rare and desirable music box hinged on the outcome) decided it was up to him to find out who that someone was, and took me along for the ride. That escapade became THE MUSIC BOX MURDERS.

 

Thomas and his pals continued to keep me company. In SCAMMING THE BIRDMAN they devised a wonderfully entertaining sting to settle scores with Vincent LoPriore a nasty and dangerous collector of mechanical birds, who had ripped off a collection belonging to one of Thomas's friends. Then in THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL they helped Edna Reynolds, the Doll Lady, redirect her life after a disabling stroke, while at the same time sorting out why bodies seem to be piling up around a rare, valuable music box.

 

There will be at least a fourth Purdue mystery, but not for a little while. With a new publisher, I'm trying some new projects.

 

FIRST, DO NO HARM, is a story I've wanted to write for close to twenty years, the fictional expansion and exploration of some of my childhood experiences of more than a half-century ago. Part of the story takes place in 1943, part in 2003. I hope to follow that book with two related mysteries, one set in 1899, one in 1916, both centering on ragtime music (another of my interests).

 

What do I do with my free time? Restore music boxes (though not as capably as Thomas Purdue), read other authors, listen to music, go to Seattle's great theater and musical performances, root for the Mariners (Bad year. Bad, bad year). And, of course, visit New York whenever possible."--Larry Karp

 

Feel like a second cup?