Jack Wakes Up: A Novel [Paperback]

Seth Harwood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 2009

Washed-up movie star Jack Palms is knee-deep in a Bay Area drug war and it ll take the performance of a lifetime to get him through it alive.

In the three years since Jack Palms left Hollywood and kicked his drug habit, he s added fourteen pounds of muscle, read eighty-three books, and played it as straight as anyone could reasonably ask. But the residual checks are drying up, and the ascetic lifestyle s starting to wear thin, so Jack s happy to cash in on his former celebrity by showing some out-of-town high rollers around San Francisco s club scene.

Then people start turning up dead, and Jack realizes he s been playing tour guide to a pack of former KGB agents turned coke dealers. Soon he s got too many gunmen after him to count including a South American drug cartel, a mountain-sized Samoan enforcer, and a mobbed-up strip-club owner with an army of thugs. That s not to mention the gorgeous bartender who may be planning on shooting him in the back and the homicide cop who s just given Jack twenty-four hours to bring down the Bay Area s biggest drug dealer.

But the thing that scares Jack the most? He s starting to enjoy himself.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Readers who like their hard-boiled crime fiction violent and gritty will cheer Harwood's debut. An arrest for domestic battery derailed the acting career of Jack Palms, a one-hit wonder known for his role in the action film Shake 'Em Down, who's been leading a quiet, uneventful and alcohol-free existence in Sausalito, Calif. In need of money, Jack can't resist the offer of an old friend, Ralph Anderino, to help entertain some visiting Czechs looking for a large chunk of blow. Soon, the ex-actor stumbles on Anderino lying facedown in his Jacuzzi with a good chunk of his skull missing. To avoid being fingered for the murder, Jack shares what he knows with the cop who arrested him for domestic assault. Jack then decides to play with fire by stepping into Anderino's role to make the coke sale happen. While the plot line may be familiar, the taut prose and fast pacing bode well for future entries in the series. (May)
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Review

Jack Wakes Up rocks! It's a fast, smooth ride on a highway not found on any map. Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Brass Verdict

Exhilarating . . . reads like a long-lost Mickey Spillane tale as directed by Robert Rodriguez.
Megan Abbott, Edgar Award winning author of Queenpin

A cold, refreshing slap of glorious mayhem that doesn t allow you to blink until you turn the last page.
Jason Pinter, bestselling author of The Mark


From the Trade Paperback edition. --Michael Connelly

Jack Wakes Up rocks! It's a fast, smooth ride on a highway not found on any map. Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Brass Verdict

Exhilarating . . . reads like a long-lost Mickey Spillane tale as directed by Robert Rodriguez.
Megan Abbott, Edgar Award winning author of Queenpin

A cold, refreshing slap of glorious mayhem that doesn t allow you to blink until you turn the last page.
Jason Pinter, bestselling author of The Mark --Megan Abbott

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 293 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; Updated edition (May 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307454355
• ISBN-13: 978-0307454355
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #547,107 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Seth Harwood holds an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He has taught creative writing at the University of Iowa, Stanford, UMass Boston, and at the City College of San Francisco. His fiction has appeared in over a dozen literary and crime/noir journals. In July, 2006, he became the first crime author to serialize his work as a podcast-only novel, when he started posting weekly free episodes of JACK WAKES UP. Three Rivers Press released JACK WAKES UP as a print novel on May 5th, 2009.

Seth has now podcast three novels in the Jack Palms Crime series and a fourth novel at his website, sethharwood.com, where you can download and listen to them all for free. He also hosts the online series of crime story podcasts at CrimeWAV.com, which features today's top authors in the genre.
His email address is seth (at) sethharwood (dot) com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Harwood sucker-punches crime fiction, January 30, 2008

By 

Scott C. Sigler "Author of INFECTED" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Jack Wakes Up (Jack Palms Crime Mysteries) (Paperback)

I was lucky enough to be an advance reader for this shoot-em-up, and the book's sheer testosterone-steeped power corrupted my once-pristine morals.

Welcome to the seedy underbelly of San Francisco, where drug lords, ambitious gangsters, partyin' terrorists and imported hitmen rock the bars, trash the stripclubs and tear through the city streets in a tire-squealing cherry Fastback, guns-a-blazin and bystanders be damned.

There's no wasted words in this book. JACK WAKES UP reads like watching a .44 slug in slow-motion: rope-tight storytelling that's going to punch a big hole in whatever it hits. Harwood excels at character creation, making a pantheon of playas you want to simultaneously see live forever and/or get shot in the face at point-blank range.

Jack Palms is a washed-up ex-action star on the good side of a twelve-month dance with Narcanon. Jack is the everyman that stumbles into a frantic drug war, a believable person in an unbelievable situation. Drawn into the plot by a need for cash, kept in by loyalty, then trapped by new enemies and a lack of options, Jack tries to stay alive ... and stay clean and sober.

JACK WAKES UP is like a Tarantino film pulled off the screen, rolled in a John Woo zig-zag wrapper and sparked up with a vintage Miami Vice lighter. Buy it now and thank me later.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crime Noir at it's Action Packed Best!, January 30, 2008

By 

Jerry Scullion (Chalfont, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Jack Wakes Up (Jack Palms Crime Mysteries) (Paperback)

Seth Harwood has created an action-packed, crime noir novel, that never lets up. Jack Palms, washed up action hero, stumbles into the crime world of San Francisco drug trade,while trying to find the murderer of his friend. If that wasn't bad enough, he has self doubts about life, his addictions, his divorce and failed career, staying sober, all the while while trying to stay alive. Harwood's writing style quickly gets you hooked, and maintains a frantic pace throughout the story, while maintaining multiple characters and storylines. I found Jack Wakes Up very easy to get completely absorbed in, and very hard to put down. Full of action, and not everything is as it seems! I hope the sequel comes out soon afterward!

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read, January 30, 2008

By 

J. C. Hutchins "www.JCHutchins.net" (Florida) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Jack Wakes Up (Jack Palms Crime Mysteries) (Paperback)

Seth Harwood's "Jack Wakes Up" doesn't just entertain ... it grabs you by the collar and drags you through a California crimescape so real, you'll wonder if you're actually reading fiction. Jack Palms, the story's unlikely hero, is brilliantly realized. You'll feel for the character -- and you'll feel the impact of Harwood's brass-knuckled plot twists, too. An excellent debut novel.