Patrick Larkin

When I was nine years old, I caught the writing bug. My fourth-grade teacher read one of my stories to the whole class—something I found both embarrassing and exhilarating, all in the same moment. I doubt that story would qualify as great literature, but it was pretty darned exciting for a bunch of kids caught inside on a rainy day, full of archers and knights, ambushes, and thundering cavalry charges. I've been interested in history, especially military history, for as long as I can remember. (As a three-year-old, one of my Patrick Larkin graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in English, went to work in Washington, D.C. as a researcher for a committee of the House of Representatives. Other jobs as a political and corporate speechwriter followed. Along the way, he wrote adventures for a Star Trek role-playing game and created the background history for Battletech—which has now spawned a whole series of popular board games, computer games, and novels. In 1985, he met Larry Bond while he and Tom Clancy were finishing their book Red Storm Rising. Larry and Patrick teamed up in 1987, and their first book, Red Phoenix, hit the New York Times best seller list as soon as it was published in 1989. With bolstered confidence (or an inflated ego, depending on whom you ask!), Larkin abandoned speechwriting to work as a full-time novelist. Over the next nine years, Bond and Larkin wrote four more novels together—Vortex, Cauldron, The Enemy Within, and Day of Wrath. Patrick is married and lives in Northern California.