We’ve reached the end of my little Marshall Karp Appreciation Day posts—I talked a little about how I fanboy-ed on him earlier, I’ve posted about his New Release, NYPD Red 7: The Murder Sorority, I posted about his summer release, Snowstorm in August, and now I get to pick his brain a little about his career and books. It’s probably clear from the questions, but my focus was on Snowstorm in August, not today’s new release, but it’s still good to hear from the author regardless, and some of this fits with that series, anyway. I hope you enjoyed this 1/10th as much as I did.
Let’s start by introducing yourself to the readers by sketching out your path to publication (bonus points for working in a pitch for the Lomax & Biggs books)
My path? That’s like saying to a lab rat who finally got to the center of the maze, tell us about your Path to Cheese. I just started running. Every time I hit a wall I’d get up, and run the other way. Did I follow a path? No. But I could always smell the cheese.
I was born a writer. It’s something you realize at an early age, like if you’re born a natural athlete, or a singer, or a conjoined twin. But I didn’t think of writing as a career. In my senior year of high school, I decided I’d become a dentist, but happily, my plans crashed and burned when I flunked biology in college. I also started working on the school newspaper, and I realized how much I loved — no, wait — needed to write.
After college I got a job as an advertising copywriter. I was good at it. But the punishment for being an award-winning writer is to put you in charge of a large creative department and pay you not to write. It was fun for a while, and then I had my first midlife crisis. I’m a writer. Am I going to spend the rest of my life not writing?
So that summer, I sat down and wrote a play, Squabbles. Some people in TV noticed it, and suddenly I was the flavor of the month. So off I went to Hollywood. Dozens of TV shows and a feature film later, I came back to New York, caught the dotcom wave, opened up an Internet ad agency, did well, sold the company, and finally sat down to write that book.
I figured it would take six months. I was wrong, and for the next five years I slogged along. That so-called path was filled with rookie mistakes, paralyzing self-doubt, and crushing rejections. And then one day, I got the call. Someone wanted to publish my first novel, The Rabbit Factory. I’ve made it, I thought. I can cross “write book, get it published” off my bucket list. But apparently, Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs, my two LAPD detectives, caught on. People wanted more. Fourteen books into my career, I’m still at it. What can I say? I like the cheese.
I can’t imagine that I’m going to get to ask this question a lot, but what was the process like getting the co-writing gig with James Patterson? I don’t imagine it’s like most writing collaborations. And once you got the job, was it more exciting or intimidating? (or after your years in TV and Film, are you at the point where a job is a job?)
I had worked with Jim in advertising. e had given me some brilliant storytelling advice when I sat down to write my first book. But the day he called to ask if I’d write a book with him was mind-jarring. After four Lomax and Biggs books that fell into the Critically-Acclaimed-but-Not-Gonna-Pay-The-Rent category, I was being offered the opportunity to collaborate on a book that I knew had a shot at the #1 slot on the New York Times bestseller list.
The process was simple. Jim came up with the outline. I fleshed it out and started sending him chapters. The book, Kill Me If You Can, hit #1. And then I did something most writers never do. I pitched an idea to James Patterson. A hand-picked squad of NYPD cops who answer the call whenever a crime is committed against New York City’s rich and famous. An elite task force called NYPD RED.
He loved it. We produced six bestselling NYPD RED books together, and then it happened: James Patterson announced, “I’m thrilled to have Marshall Karp take on the NYPD RED series.” It doesn’t get any headier (or scarier) than that. It was both exciting and intimidating. Exhilarating and petrifying. And for me, writing — writing anything — is never a job. It’s a joy.
Moving on to Snowstorm in August—how do you possibly research these things (I’m thinking particularly of the Central Park attack) without landing yourself on a few dozen watchlists? (that’s mostly a joke, but I’m serious—how do you go about researching all these things?)
I Google weird shit dozens of times a day. In the first chapter of my first book, The Rabbit Factory, I killed a pedophile. I researched their behavior, their backgrounds, and their modi operandi, so I’m pretty sure I made the Big Brother watchlists early on.
A word about research — sometimes accuracy is critical. When I was trying to have a character shove a toaster oven down an incinerator chute in a New York City apartment building, I called the company in Florida that makes the chutes and talked to one of their technicians. His first question — “Why would anyone want to shove a toaster oven down an incinerator chute?” I said, “Because there’s a bomb in the toaster oven, and the guy is a cop. Now … can he get it in, and what happens to the chute when the bomb goes off in the basement?” We talked for an hour. Another upstanding citizen sucked into my life of crime.
But sometimes accuracy is impossible. When I was writing Snowstorm In August, I remember asking Google, “How many tons of cocaine would it take to blanket Central Park?” All I got in return were drug laws, street prices, and a link to join the Central Park Conservancy. So I asked Siri, and she responded with, “There are seven drug rehabilitation clinics near you.” Eventually, my friend, retired NYPD homicide detective Danny Corcoran, helped me come up with an answer: four tons. It may be right; it may be wrong. Who’s gonna argue?
The idea of a (at least somewhat) benevolent shadowy cabal of billionaires seems fairly novel. Where does an idea like this come from—was it a product of “I need a funding source for this team” or a “what if I had this group of billionaires wanting to do some good, what could I do with that?”
Definitely the former. I had a Mission Impossible-style team. They needed an unlimited budget. Enter the Baltic Avenue Group, four billionaires who are willing to secretly fund the team. Not because they’re do-gooders, but because they are well aware that the September 11 terrorist attacks cost New York City three billion dollars. And since their individual wealth is directly tied to the financial and political stability of the city, they are willing to spend millions to safeguard their billions.
I haven’t read that many people who’ve done this (maybe only you), so I have to ask—is there a difference between writing LAPD detectives and NYPD detectives? Or is it the characters or what the book/series calls for that makes the difference?
That’s a great question. I think the best way to answer is to come back at you with a few questions of my own. Is there a difference between New York and LA? Is there a difference between Los Angelinos and New Yorkers? Having lived in LA for two years I can answer those questions in one word. Duh! The NYPD RED books are steeped in the lore, the culture, and the attitude of New York. My Lomax and Biggs books are so Hollywood-centric, you can practically smell the bullshit in the world they live in. But here’s a fine point. Mike Lomax was born in LA. He has that casual Southern California way of winning people over. His partner Terry Biggs is much more of an in-your-face cop. That’s because Terry is a transplant. He was born and raised on the tough streets of New York and that “you talkin’ to me?” charm oozes from every pore.
Before we wrap things up, I have to give you a chance to talk about Vitamin Angels. Please tell us about it—and how readers can help.
On September 11, 2001 my daughter Sarah had just arrived at the World Trade Center when American Airlines flight 11 crashed into the North Tower. An eternity would pass before I knew she survived, and the agony of watching the towers collapse until I got the joyful news was unbearable.
Thirty-six hours later I finally got to see Sarah, and that first embrace has forever been enshrined in our Father-Daughter chronicles as The Best Hug Ever. As I held her in my arms, I made a vow. Do something. Pay the universe back for sparing my child.
I searched the Internet until I stumbled on Vitamin Angels. One man, Howard Schiffer, made it his mission to find companies willing to donate vitamins, and then he’d distribute them through local relief groups in 20 countries.
I asked him what was the biggest global problem that vitamins could solve? “Five hundred thousand children around the world go blind from Vitamin A deficiency,” he said. “We know the solution — a high dose of Vitamin A administered every six months. It would only cost 25 cents a year to save one child’s life. But we don’t have the money.”
“Corporations have money,” I said. So I went to Johnson and Johnson and asked if they would be the first to sponsor a program to eradicate Vitamin A deficiency childhood blindness on the planet by the year 2020. They agreed. That first year we reached 200,000 children. Two years later it was a million.
Today, Vitamin Angels is bringing life-saving nutrition to 70 million children and nursing mothers around the world. And all it costs is 25 cents to save one child’s life.
Your readers can donate through my website or directly to Vitamin Angels.
You’ve got the next NYPD Red book coming soon, and presumably more of them to come, what else should readers expect to come from Marshall Karp?
NYPD RED 7: THE MURDER SORORITY will be released on Nov 22. Publishers Weekly gave it a coveted starred review and called it “the best yet in the series.” Pretty heady, since it’s the first one I’ve written since Patterson turned the reins over to me. Your readers — even if they haven’t read any of the previous NYPD RED books — can read this one first. Like episodes of Law & Order, each book stands on its own.
I’m not sure what I will be writing next, but I would be thrilled if you told them about Lomax and Biggs. I’ve just reissued all five books on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. You can also find them as e-books on Smashwords. Start with The Rabbit Factory. (It’s where my life of crime began.)
Thanks for your time, and I hope you have a lot of success with Snowstorm in August, I had a great time with it.
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