Sunday, August 08, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

'THE WAKE-UP': Ferrigno's latest raises bar

Novel features wacky characters, more action, humor

Robert Ferrigno talks about his life and work during an interview in his hotel room at The Mirage on Nov. 13, 2001. The cover of Ferrigno's latest work, "The Wake-Up," is seen at right. REVIEW-JOURNAL FILE PHOTO Click image for enlargement.

For every James Patterson or Stuart Woods, those best-selling authors whose works make The New York Times list no matter how bad the book they turn out, there's a writer like Robert Ferrigno who year in and year out creates terrific fiction that deserves a wider audience.

But with his latest work, "The Wake-Up," Ferrigno's readership may jump to a whole new level.

It's the story of Frank Thorpe, a burned-out government black ops man whose last job goes horribly wrong and is retired from the agency.

"He's 40 years old, he's spent his life cultivating a lie and now he has no friends, no family," Ferrigno said in an interview with the Review-Journal. "His most intimate relationship was with a woman who's murdered in the opening chapter during one of the operations."

One day, while waiting to fly out of LAX for a vacation trip to Miami, Thorpe sees a hard-charging businessman knock down and bloody a young Hispanic who's selling confections.

Because Thorpe operates on a heightened sense of right and wrong, he chases after the man, but only catches a glimpse of him driving away in a red Porsche convertible with a beautiful blonde at the wheel.

At that point Thorpe decides to help set things straight for the boy. A simple apology would be nice.

It's an innocent enough setup for a crime novel, but in Ferrigno's fictional world of Southern California, things can only get worse.

"I'm fascinated by the idea of trying to do the right thing," Ferrigno said. "One of the things he did as an operative is what they call giving somebody a `wake-up.' Someone who thinks they're on top of the world, you enter their life and, not physically threaten them, but you make them aware of how vulnerable they are. The wake-up turns out to be dangerous and makes everything worse, so Thorpe has to save the situation. And in so doing, he rights himself. The best impulses we have are to make things right, to see a wrong or an injustice and fix it. It's the whole good Samaritan thing. My heroes make things worse originally, but they're morally compelled to clean up their own mess."

Along the way, as things worsen, Thorpe comes across a lineup of morally challenged people who are among Ferrigno's finest creations: the surfer, who is always creating newer and better methamphetamines; his social-climbing wife; and a pair of thugs that includes a Mexican-American who wears a three-piece suit, carries a briefcase, drives a nice car and sends his children to private schools, and his partner, a Rumanian named Vlad who was the victim of genetic engineering by the Ceausescu regime.

Vlad is a killer with a childlike sense of wonder, and in Ferrigno's hands, a killer you come to feel sorry for. A scene between Vlad and Thorpe near the end of the book is one of the most affecting Ferrigno has ever written.

Besides Ferrigno's trademark wacky characters, "The Wake-Up" contains more action -- a subplot involves Thorpe getting revenge against the man who killed the woman he loved -- and more humor than even previous works such as "The Horse Latitudes," "Heartbreaker" and "Scavenger Hunt."

Critics are always trying to pin the "next Raymond Chandler" label on writers who set their work in Southern California, as Ferrigno, a former feature writer with the Orange County Register, does.

It's safe, and accurate, to say that Ferrigno, in his ability to capture all the social strata and strangeness of Southern California, is even better than Chandler, who for all his stylistic talent was still stuck in the detective genre. Throughout his career, Ferrigno has not only transcended the crime novel, he's blown it up.

For newcomers to Ferrigno's work, "The Wake-Up" is a great place to start. He has created a streamlined package of dynamite with a compelling plot, a strong moral sense and genuine affection for all of his characters. A rare combination in any type of fiction these days.