Jack Palms is a one-hit wonder actor who's climbing his way back from drug addiction and a domestic abuse charge. The financing for the sequel to his hit movie dried up with his arrest, his marriage is long gone, the money is just about gone and Jack is nearly broke, out of work and on the verge of losing his house in Sausalito, California. Jack's working hard at living right and getting himself back on the right track, but we all know how far that goes when the bills are due, so when the phone rings with an offer from an old friend to make some quick cash, Jack agrees.

Jack metaphorically woke up and I fell asleep. Jack Wakes Up came with a lot of positive press, but the story didn't do anything for me. I found the Jack Palms character unlikable and unbelievable. The supporting characters came across as one-dimensional caricatures that bordered on stereotypes and were unintentionally comical. The dialogue and narrative - the meat and potatoes of stories like this - were, at times, weak and uninteresting, and I found myself taken out of the story thinking about that which made it very difficult for me to maintain any interest in the story. Finally, I found the present-tense narrative distracting.

The plot of Jack Wakes Up isn't new stuff but that's alright because the 'how' and the 'why' are really less important than the 'who' and the 'what' in this type of crime story. But there are writers, specifically Charlie Huston and Victor Gischler, who do this sort of 'wrong man' story, this average schmoe suddenly finding himself having to not just survive, but thrive, in a hardboiled, gritty, violent world, a lot better than Seth Harwood did it here with Jack Palms.

Despite this being a negative review, I didn't hate Jack Wakes Up, I just thought it could have been more. And better. Yeah, I know, purely subjective. I really wanted to like this book and because of that I'll read Seth Harwood's second book, Young Junius.