Harp, Andy

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Harp, Andy

PERSONAL:

Born in Helena, AR; married; wife's name Jane; children: four. Education: American University, Washington, DC, B.A., 1973; Mercer University, J.D., 1980.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Columbus, GA. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, attorney, and U.S. Marine Corps officer. Served as district attorney in Cordele, GA, as a civil trial attorney, and as an attorney in private practice. Military service: Served in the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Marine Corps Reserve; became colonel; retired from U.S. Marine Corps Reserve; received Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, and Navy Commendation Medal.

MEMBER:

Marine Corps Reserve Officer's Association (former national president), International Thriller Writers Association.

WRITINGS:

A Northern Thunder (novel), Bancroft Press (Baltimore, MD), 2007.

Contributor to professional journals and periodicals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Andy Harp is a writer, novelist, and attorney. Harp has served in a number of positions within the legal profession, first as a district attorney in a small Georgia city, as a civil trial lawyer specializing in cases brought by injured railroad workers, and as an attorney in private practice. He is a career officer in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, where he retired at the rank of colonel. His numerous military posts include Regimental Battery Commander with the 11th Marines and Instructor in Charge at the Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, California. He was trained in arctic survival at Fort Greeley, Alaska. Harp served in military assignments in areas throughout the world, including Korea, the Persian Gulf, Central America, Europe, and in the United States at the Pentagon. His final post before retiring was as Officer in Charge of the Crisis Action Team for Marine Forces Central Command and Marine Forces Pacific, noted a biographer on the author's home page.

With A Northern Thunder, Harp added novelist to his already extensive list of professional accomplishments. His main character is Will Parker, a retired Marine Reserve colonel with a stellar resume and inside information that will help him crack a case of hidden identity. In North Korea, Peter Nampo, a brilliant scientist, is developing satellite technology with chillingly devastating potential. The technology will allow North Korea to knock any rival country's own satellites out of orbit, and will provide the means to rain destruction down on any nation that resists. It will also serve as a phenomenal source of revenue as the destructive orbital equipment is sold to terrorist organizations, rogue nations, and other groups with the resources to make a purchase and the will to force their agenda on others. For Nampo's part, he sees the technology as less of a military or terrorist weapon and more of a patriotic, nationalist tool—he intends to use the cash it raises to feed the starving population of North Korea.

Parker's mission is to locate and stop Nampo before he can finish creating his apocalyptic machinery. His task is complicated by the fact that nobody knows what Nampo currently looks like, and he never appears in public without the presence of a trio of doubles who serve as decoys. Yet Parker has the best chance of anyone of locating him, since the two were roommates years ago in college. Meanwhile, deadly assassins begin eliminating anyone who might interfere with the completion of Nampo's project, with Parker as the latest target to fall within their sights.

The book "certainly belongs in the hands of all military-thriller fans," commented Mary Frances Wilkens in Booklist. A Publishers Weekly critic admired Will Parker as a character, noting that Parker "has resilience, foresight and fortitude to spare." Harriet Klausner, writing on the Harriet Klausner's Review Archive Web site, concluded that "Andy Harp knows how to create a good story that is germane to the times."