The RagTime Traveler

by Larry Karp, R.D. McMickle

Overview

It takes one moment in 2016 for ragtime music expert Alan Chandler to go from sitting in his hotel room in Sedalia, Missouri, to standing beside the King of Ragtime—Scott Joplin—at his upright piano in 1899. Chandler suddenly finds himself more than one hundred years earlier inside the famous Maple Leaf Club with its gas chandeliers, massive walnut bar, gaming tables, and pals surrounding the noted pianist and composer.

"What in the hell is going on? Am I dreaming?"

Clearly something unexpected is going on for Chandler in the fourth and final Ragtime Mystery by father and son Larry Karp and Casey Karp. A longtime friend Mickey Potash phones Chandler, top ragtime performer and national expert on Joplin, to say that a duffel filled with Joplin's handwritten music has surfaced. Chandler and his grandson, Tom, race from Seattle to Sedalia to evaluate what may be the most important find in popular American music. Potash shows them initial pages which look authentic, but before they can get the duffel hidden in a padlocked closet, he is tortured and murdered. The duffel is stolen.

Disappointment encourages a resurgence of symptoms in Chandler's Stage 4 cancer. He's determined to validate the music before time runs out. Tom, and later his wife, Miriam, help him. Another murder complicates their investigation. The trail to the duffel is crowded: Jackson and Saramae, two young people with journalism in their blood, want to solve the crime, as do homicide detectives and antique shopkeepers. Not surprisingly, the roots of the lost music lie in past emotional conflict, now tangled in genealogical warfare.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781464208140
Publisher:	Poisoned Pen Press
Publication date:	06/06/2017
Series:	Ragtime Mysteries Series , #4
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Larry Karp, Casey's father, has written long and short nonfiction, restored and collected antique music boxes, and practiced perinatal medicine. He left medical work in 1994 to write mystery novels full-time. The RagTime Traveler is the fourth book of an historical-mystery series, following The Ragtime Kid , The King of Ragtime , and The Ragtime Fool .

A self-described New Yorker, Larry and his wife Myra have lived in Seattle for 46 years. They have two grown children and one grandchild.

Casey Karp has been a librarian and a software quality engineer. He has been writing full-time since 2013. The RagTime Traveler is his first novel.

An immigrant Californian, Casey and his wife, Maggie, have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than two decades. They are owned by an ever-increasing herd of cats.

Editorial Reviews

04/03/2017
In Larry Karp and son Casey’s welcome addition to Larry’s Ragtime trilogy (which concluded with 2010’s The Ragtime Fool), ragtime music authority Alan Chandler and his 16-year-old grandson, Tom, travel from Seattle to Sedalia, Mo., to meet pianist Mikey Potash, who claims to have discovered a trove of unknown compositions by Scott Joplin. Potash shows them an old duffel bag filled with handwritten sheets of music, notes, and revisions undoubtedly by Joplin and tells how he came to buy it from a Kansas City antique dealer. In his hotel room, Alan, who takes drugs for his fourth-stage prostate cancer, somehow visits 1899 Sedalia and Scott Joplin—hallucination or reality? After Potash is murdered and the duffel bag stolen, Alan, who continues to time-travel, and Tom go after the killer and the stolen bag. In the course of their search, the sleuths discover two branches of a family—the Nolands and the Nowlins—intimately and acrimoniously involved with Joplin and his music. Lovers of Joplin and ragtime will enjoy this trip to the past. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"In The RagTime Traveler , the fourth novel in his ragtime mystery quartet, he seamlessly weaves his story through time in contemporary and historical Sedalia and Kansas City, Missouri. His characters interact with current and historical personalities so well as to cause readers to forget they are reading a work of fiction."

Larry Melton

"What takes this beyond the usual mystery story is Alan's unusual ability to concentrate on the music and transport himself to 1899 Sedalia, becoming friends with Scott Joplin and his associates.Whether the time-traveling trips are real or just daydreams, they give the reader the opportunity to experience what it was like to exist and mingle with Joplin and others in that history-making era of American music."

Mystery Scene Magazine - Joe Scarpato Jr

"For those who have loved these mysteries, you will most certainly love this one. The words of the authors are always descriptive and flow well, the plots are rich and colorful, and the cast of characters, both young and old, are beyond memorable."

Suspense Magazine - Mary Lignor

2017-03-21
A musical scholar meets his ragtime idol and solves a tangled murder with help from the past.Elderly Alan Chandler is battling cancer in Seattle, but playing the piano lifts his spirits, especially when it's a Scott Joplin tune. His old friend Mickey Potash has discovered some notebooks written by Joplin and sends him a sample of the music. An invigorated Alan decides on a road trip across the country to Sedalia, Missouri, to meet up with Mickey and investigate Joplin further. His wife, Miriam, is worried about his health, but his grandson, Tom, accompanies him. Standing in Joplin's beloved Maple Leaf Club is a surreal experience for Alan, made even more so when he wakes up in the middle of the night and finds that he's been transported from 2016 back to 1899. He's overjoyed to meet Joplin himself. After this dreamlike episode, Alan goes back to sleep; the next morning, Tom goes to Mickey's house and finds him murdered in his bed, strangled by a length of piano wire. Tom recounts his gruesome discovery as Alan unsuccessfully attempts to explain his apparent time travel. Nevertheless, Alan's eager to help Tom investigate. He shares his story with righteous Detective Parks while Tom breaks the news of Mickey's death to his pal JJ Jackson. Alan feels betrayed when Parks arrests JJ for the murder. Using time travel as an unlikely aid, Alan and Tom crack the case. The fourth Ragtime Mystery (The Ragtime Fool, 2010, etc.) is filled with warmth and wonder and interesting music trivia, buoyed by the relationship between the two sleuths, which may well echo that between the late Larry Karp and his son, who finished this final installment after his death.

Kirkus Reviews