When Eye Candy Fights Back: Adding Depth To a Love Interest
Frank Paine, the protagonist in King of Paine, is a former Hollywood stud who’s recently joined the FBI, a role that screams for a centerfold on his arm. As a former beauty queen and TV starlet, Jolynn Decker could easily fall into the “eye candy” stereotype, a conclusion not...
My Inspiration For King of Paine
I’m often asked about my inspiration for King of Paine because the story melds two wildly different story lines (and because one of them centers around some pretty kinky sex, and on first sight I seem about as vanilla as it gets). In the main story, Special Agent Frank...
Rooting for a Flawed Protagonist
Readers love to root for their action heroes, so even when authors endow their main characters with flaws to add depth and realism, the “defects” are often designed to make you sympathize with the character more (like a job applicant who reluctantly admits to being a workaholic). The archetypes...
Researching the Psychology of BDSM
Despite the provocative image on King of Paine’s cover, I did not set out to write a novel about BDSM. The story remains primarily a whodunit that follows two investigations, the FBI’s pursuit of a stalker committing a series of kinky Internet crimes and a reporter tracking the disappearance...
“Who Are You Chatting With? The Dangers of Anonymous Internet Communications”
Ever since my two sons began using AOL’s instant messaging service in the late-1990s, I’ve been intrigued by the potential for good and evil inherent in anonymous Internet chat, a device featured prominently in both of my novels. Like every parent, I feared my kids could become vulnerable to...
King of Paine
“Larry Kahn has managed to create a cast of unforgettable characters, throwing in a bit of sex and misadventure, while infusing it with legal, moral, and ethical dilemmas. To say that I thought the King of Paine was brilliantly written would be an understatement. I sat down to read...
King of Paine Publication Date
As chronicled here and on my website, I’ve been struggling with the decision to self-publish KING OF PAINE, my second novel, or slog through the process of finding an agent and then a commercial publisher. I half-heartedly sent out a few query letters earlier this year, and one agent...