- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Arrow; New edition edition (5 Jan 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099457091
- ISBN-13: 978-0099457091
- Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 11 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 804,782 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'Rapid, lurid and smartly put together' - Evening Standard 'Exciting... Unusually enthralling' - Chicago Sun-Times 'Sharp, fast and slick. Ferrigno can read like Raymond Chandler on speed' - Kirkus Reviews
Book Description
This is the very best in classic thriller writing. Intelligent, original, edge of the seat suspense, it is no wonder that he is considered the thriller writer's thriller writer.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Robert Ferrigno has quickly become one of my favourite authors. His blend of real characters set in the seedy underbelly of popular US cities has been a great formula.
'The Wake Up' continues this winning formula as we follow an ex-covert ops worker as he comes to terms with unemployment. To fill in his time he decides to seek revenge on a snobby businessman who had the guile to knock over a small boy without apologising.
However, this harmless wake-up soon delves the covert operator into a world of designer drugs - and designer art. Is he too rusty to survive the powder keg he has just set off?
This book is very good and I rate it highly within the crime genre but having read Ferrigno's back catalogue it can not hold a candle to the likes of 'Flinch' and 'Heartbreaker'. These two books follow the same pattern as 'The Wake Up' but feel fresher.
Highly recommended but not brilliant compared to Ferrigno's normal standard.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
15 reviews
34 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Wake-Up and read this superb thriller!
12 Oct 2004
Format:Hardcover
Robert Ferrigno's The Wake-Up is the latest in a string of wonderful, off-beat and inventive novels from this Seattle author who knows Los Angeles better that most of the city's denizens.
Frank Thorpe is a black bag expert for a shadowy government agency, the kind of man you call on when you need something illegal done for a good cause. Thorpe is haunted by a mission gone terribly wrong, in which an opponent known only as "The Engineer" killed someone dear to Frank's heart.
Now Thorpe is determined to find The Engineer and extract his revenge. Along the way, he gets involved with a whacked out surfer who runs a drug empire, his social climbing wife, their two viciously cruel bodyguards (one of whom apparently can't be killed), and enough bizarre, funny and original characters to fill two Elmore Leonard books.
Not only is it a delight to read, but Ferrigno's work is also worthy of notice because he doesn't seem interested in following the conventions of the genre. He doesn't have a series character, doesn't use tried and true plots and apparently doesn't care about happy endings or the other "must have" elements that publishers insist on.
In short, he's an original -- and an extremely talented one at that. It's amazing that Ferrigno hasn't become a bigger name on the publishing scene. His books are like a breath of fresh air -- something most of us can use, whether we live in L.A. or not.
Reviewed by David Montgomery, Mystery Ink
Frank Thorpe is a black bag expert for a shadowy government agency, the kind of man you call on when you need something illegal done for a good cause. Thorpe is haunted by a mission gone terribly wrong, in which an opponent known only as "The Engineer" killed someone dear to Frank's heart.
Now Thorpe is determined to find The Engineer and extract his revenge. Along the way, he gets involved with a whacked out surfer who runs a drug empire, his social climbing wife, their two viciously cruel bodyguards (one of whom apparently can't be killed), and enough bizarre, funny and original characters to fill two Elmore Leonard books.
Not only is it a delight to read, but Ferrigno's work is also worthy of notice because he doesn't seem interested in following the conventions of the genre. He doesn't have a series character, doesn't use tried and true plots and apparently doesn't care about happy endings or the other "must have" elements that publishers insist on.
In short, he's an original -- and an extremely talented one at that. It's amazing that Ferrigno hasn't become a bigger name on the publishing scene. His books are like a breath of fresh air -- something most of us can use, whether we live in L.A. or not.
Reviewed by David Montgomery, Mystery Ink
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
The New Master
25 Aug 2004
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Great crime writing is not easily accomplished, but the key to it is easily stated--the feel of total freshness accompanied by absolute fidelity to the genre. The new master of this activity is Robert Ferrigno and THE WAKE-UP solidifies his position. The characters are quirky and engaging, the plot unexpected and clever, the one-liners classic. One line in particular sets a new standard. Unfortunately, it cannot be quoted here. It is a world-weary musing on the degree to which every job becomes just that, something you do because you're paid to do it. The line concerns a service-industry worker for the King of Siam. Check it out and then try to forget it. You won't be able to do so.
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
An extremely well-written novel in which everything works
21 Aug 2004
Format:Hardcover
I am, I confess, a sucker for revenge novels, especially for well-written ones. Accordingly, when I discover an extremely well-written novel that deals with settling scores, I find myself ready to press the work into as many hands as I possibly can. The one that I am passing on to you, right now, is THE WAKE-UP by Robert Ferrigno.
Ferrigno has gone from hitting his stride with last year's SCAVENGER HUNT (in the running for the MWA's Best Mystery Novel of 2003, even as I write) to racing at a full gallop with THE WAKE-UP. This is one of those novels in which everything works, at least narratively. Things go badly at times for Frank Thorpe, the flawed but sympathetic hero of the piece, but it just serves to keep things interesting from first page to last and to keep the reader consuming all of those pages in between.
Thorpe is a very smart, very dangerous government operative who makes an error in judgment that costs him dearly --- not only with respect to his job but also in his personal life. The object of his error, and his resultant enmity, is a man known only as The Engineer, who seems to have disappeared after shattering Thorpe's career. Thorpe, still haunted by his judgment lapse, is about to leave southern California for a much needed change of scenery when he witnesses an arrogant, casual act of rudeness and cruelty visited upon a young boy. Thorpe's anger at The Engineer needs some diversion --- at least until he can locate The Engineer himself --- so he makes it his business to avenge the boy.
The author of the rude act is Douglas Meachum, a self-important art dealer who tends to regard everyone as objects living in his world. It doesn't take long for Thorpe to interject himself into Meachum's world and give him a mild shock to the system, or what Thorpe refers to as "the wake-up." In doing so, however, Thorpe soon finds himself involved in a dangerous game with a designer drug manufacturer, his business-minded, social-climbing wife, and their psychotic but strangely endearing enforcers. And The Engineer, interestingly enough, is once again about to intrude into Thorpe's life in a very bad way.
Ferrigno's novels have always possessed a unique edginess tinged with a dark humor, and THE WAKE-UP is no exception. As a result, anything can happen in a Ferrigno book; in THE WAKE-UP anything, and everything, does. This is the book that will move Ferrigno's name to the 'A' List of a multitude of readers.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Ferrigno has gone from hitting his stride with last year's SCAVENGER HUNT (in the running for the MWA's Best Mystery Novel of 2003, even as I write) to racing at a full gallop with THE WAKE-UP. This is one of those novels in which everything works, at least narratively. Things go badly at times for Frank Thorpe, the flawed but sympathetic hero of the piece, but it just serves to keep things interesting from first page to last and to keep the reader consuming all of those pages in between.
Thorpe is a very smart, very dangerous government operative who makes an error in judgment that costs him dearly --- not only with respect to his job but also in his personal life. The object of his error, and his resultant enmity, is a man known only as The Engineer, who seems to have disappeared after shattering Thorpe's career. Thorpe, still haunted by his judgment lapse, is about to leave southern California for a much needed change of scenery when he witnesses an arrogant, casual act of rudeness and cruelty visited upon a young boy. Thorpe's anger at The Engineer needs some diversion --- at least until he can locate The Engineer himself --- so he makes it his business to avenge the boy.
The author of the rude act is Douglas Meachum, a self-important art dealer who tends to regard everyone as objects living in his world. It doesn't take long for Thorpe to interject himself into Meachum's world and give him a mild shock to the system, or what Thorpe refers to as "the wake-up." In doing so, however, Thorpe soon finds himself involved in a dangerous game with a designer drug manufacturer, his business-minded, social-climbing wife, and their psychotic but strangely endearing enforcers. And The Engineer, interestingly enough, is once again about to intrude into Thorpe's life in a very bad way.
Ferrigno's novels have always possessed a unique edginess tinged with a dark humor, and THE WAKE-UP is no exception. As a result, anything can happen in a Ferrigno book; in THE WAKE-UP anything, and everything, does. This is the book that will move Ferrigno's name to the 'A' List of a multitude of readers.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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