BOOK REVIEW

By

Jack Rummel

The Ragtime Fool

Larry Karp, author

ISBN 978-1-59058-699-0, Poisoned Pen Press, hardcover

     A trilogy is a series of three works (in this case, novels) which, although each one is complete in itself, come together and form one theme.  In the case of Larry Karp’s three mysteries, the theme is ragtime and, peripherally but importantly, the life of Scott Joplin.

    In the first book, The Ragtime Kid (ISBN 1-59058-326-4), we are introduced to young Brun Campbell as he runs off to Sedalia, MO to meet Joplin and learn ragtime.  The second volume, King of Ragtime (ISBN 978-1-59058-526-9), is set in New York City and involves Joplin and Irving Berlin, with John and Nell Stark (father and daughter) as amateur sleuths.  Yes, each work involves a murder (what is a mystery without a corpse?), but there is also much delightful ragtime history and character development that augments the suspense and the obligatory twists at the end.

     Book three, The Ragtime Fool, involves the characters we have previously met and, in a sense, brings closure to the overriding theme.  The year is 1951 and the City of Sedalia is about to recognize Joplin, their adopted son, with a ceremony (read: notoriety + tourists = $$$).  Campbell, now an aging barber living in California who still considers Joplin to be his hero, wants to attend but has no money to do so.  Then word arrives that Lottie Joplin, Scott’s widow, has a journal written in his own hand and is willing to sell it.

     Enter Alan Chandler, a 17-year-old music student in New York , who has just heard ragtime and is enthralled with it and also with Campbell as a living link to the ragtime era.  Separately, they each yearn to obtain the journal and deliver it in Sedalia during the plaque presentation.  But all of this may be thwarted by a group representing the Ku Klux Klan which intends to make a racist statement by dynamiting the proceedings.  It is easy to connect Chandler ’s excitement with that of Campbell ’s in book one, when he was the same age and similarly besotted with ragtime.  It is more emotionally difficult to deal with Campbell as an old man, plodding into the sunset carrying many unfulfilled dreams but suddenly given one last chance to make his mark.

     To divulge much more would be a disservice.  Karp fleshes out his characters, both heroes and villains, in such a manner that the reader is always on edge to find out what happens next.  Joplin ’s ghost looms large, as do those of John Stark and other Sedalia notables, and the picture the author paints of racism in 1951 is not a pretty one. 

     The book is carefully researched, however, (with 5 pages of bibliography) and the trilogy stands as a monumental work of ragtime historical fiction.  While this volume succeeds admirably on its own merits, if you have not read Larry Karp’s first two ragtime mysteries, you would be cheating yourself not to start at the beginning.

     Available at local bookstores.  The publisher’s suggested price is $24.95.  There is also a large-type soft-cover edition available.