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What does a movie-star one-hit-wonder and ex-drug-addict do when he's cleaned up, down on his luck, and running out of money?

In the three years since Jack Palms went clean - no drugs, no drinking, no life - he's added fourteen pounds of muscle, read 83 books, and played it as straight as anyone can ask him. Now, when an old friend from L.A. calls, he signs on to help a set of Eastern Europeans score enough coke to settle down and set up shop. All Jack has to do is keep them entertained and get them through their purchase.

But when the plan runs into a few problems, and Jack starts getting phone calls from an old friend on the police force, he realizes that this business will take a lot more acting than he first assumed.

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Audio Quality: Out of 86 ratings

Narration Quality: Out of 87 ratings

Writing Quality: Out of 87 ratings

Overall Rating: Out of 87 ratings

By: Trucker Rich
Seth, I absolutely love JACK Wakes Up and the rest of the JACK PALMS Novels. Keep them coming. JP2 with the Barrett 50 Cal. was very scary. JP3 is Rocking right along, lots of action. Can't wait for more.

By: Martyn
Hey Seth, Lovin? the book. It?s like Raymond Chandler, George Pelecanos and James Ellroy have been put in a blender and out came Seth Harwood! Keep it up!

By: Dan Sawyer
In Jack Wakes up, Harwood gives us a new twist on the old noir heist formula. Jack Palms, out of work actor, is tapped by a friend to play second fiddle on a giant drug dealer. He needs the money. He needs the distraction. He?s so amazingly bored that when bullets start flying and people start dying, he finds it exhilarating. In this, his first outing, Harwood combines the classic noir sensibilities of James M Cain with the quck-clipped plot movement that children of the nineties have come to expect from Tarantino films. He also gives Jack Wakes up an unusual but indispensable element: A sense of place. Not content to use just the familiar landmarks, Jack moves down in the older, decaying parts of San Francisco and other flavorful parts of the Bay Area. In short, Jack Wakes Up is an excellent crime noir, and it keeps you on your toes with hundreds of little surprises, such as a trio of Czech gangsters who want nothing more than to tour the USA on Harleys bring a touch of the tragicomic (reminiscent of the gangsters in Ludlum?s ?Road to Gandolfo? without descending into farce). Add to that the use of present tense narration (the last time the present tense used this well was in Scott Turow?s ?Presumed Innocent?), and you?ve got the recipie for a novel that moves fast, keeps you on your toes, and has some delightful and moving twists that leave you sincerely caring about every one of the characters, from the buffoons to the monsters. With the superb use of language, the far-above-par-writing, and the hopping story, Harwood?s debut is the start of a promising career. Highly recommended.

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