Robert Ferrigno - Page 1
First British Edition Hutchinson (2005) |
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The Wake Up
Frank Thorpe, a man in his early 40s, is recently retired from an off-the-books USA intelligence unit. Thorpe is smart, tough, and playful, but his loner status and temperamental streak inhibited his rise within the unit, and indeed he was forced into early retirement for all the wrong reasons.
At an airport, he watches a rich business man, a man named McCall, literally trample a young Hispanic boy and not look back. He decides to teach McCall a lesson... he won't do him any real harm, but he wants to give the man a Wake Up... a term used in the unit when one wanted to remind a restless contact of his or her vulnerability. Just a taste of payback, a slight upset in the guy's sunny world... Thorpe just wants to teach him some manners. One last good deed.
Tragically, when he tries to monkey with the guy's life, he sets up a chain reaction which ends in far more serious ramifications than Thorpe could ever have anticipated. He now has to clean up the mess he created, and, by extension, redeem his life. It's going to take all his skills, and the help of ex-spook Billy, a man who does nothing without being paid back.
'I never miss a book by Robert Ferrigno' Michael Connelly
| Paperback - Arrow (2004) |
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Scavenger Hunt
Death stalks the City of Angels…
'This scavenger hunt of yours... I played that game when I was a kid. Knocking on doors, asking for treasure and trash, and it's all the same to you. Well, open your eyes, tough guy, you stumbled on to something big here.'Walsh clawed at Jimmy Cage's arm. 'Put me on the cover of SLAP, play it up big - ' Jimmy shook him off. 'I've been hustled by the best, Walsh, and this ancient mariner routine of yours is stale. Hire a press agent if you want publicity.' 'You're killing me.' Walsh stared out of the window, his face slack. 'You're killing me and you don't even know it.'
An American thriller set in California in the world of Hollywood. A hot, young Tarantino type movie director has just been released from prison after serving a jail sentence for the rape and murder of a young girl. But as Jimmy Cage, a reporter on SLAP magazine discovers, he was set up as an act of revenge. Several deaths and threats to his own life later, Jimmy works out who set him up and why.
Praise for Robert Ferrigno:
‘Ferrigno can make you afraid, he can make you laugh, and he can keep you turning the pages.’ Washington Post Book World
‘Ferrigno has a gift for creating confrontations of high impact and his dialogue bites hard ... Ferrigno balances the tough doings with a strong sense of moral outrage and compassion.’ Los Angeles Times Book Review
`Gripping action’ New York Times
`[He] doesn’t craft elegant thrillers that peak precisely where you figure they’re going to; his just keep blowing up in your face. You can’t secondguess Ferrigno or predict where he’s going.’ Entertainment Weekly
‘Ferrigno’s crime plotting is terrific, but what’s most appealing is his photographic eye for L.A. life.’ Chicago Tribune
`An awesomely good writer’ Elmore Leonard
| Paperback - Arrow (2003) |
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Flinch
A Nightmare Killer Is Loose In The Land Of Dreams...
A murder/robbery on a stretch of beach just south of Laguna. A gang killing in Santa Ana. A young woman gunned down taking out the garbage. A high school track star shot during a dawn workout. A cook killed after work. A computer salesman found dead in a parking lot. A half dozen murders in the last month - unnoticed and unsolved. Like the note said.
An anonymous note sent to investigative reporter Jimmy Gage from someone calling himself `The Eggman’, claiming the killings and threatening to come after Jimmy.
'I never miss a book by Robert Ferrigno' Michael Connelly
‘Ferrigno delivers his story with all the edge and grace of a man who’s not afraid to walk into dark alleys alone... A terrific act of the imagination’ Boston Globe
| Paperback - Arrow (2000) |
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Heartbreaker
It opens with a killing: an undercover cop is forced to witness the murder of his partner. A drug kingpin named Junior is the man who arranged the hit. Val Duran is the cop. The killing is the catalyst that sends Val on the run and Heartbreaker off and running.
Val ends up in Hollywood, doing stunt work in B-movies, but his real life is much more hazardous. When he meets Kyle, the perfect girl-next-door, his habitual protective paranoia is immediately undone. Which means he doesn't see Junior coming after him. And he doesn't notice how fast he's sinking into the morass of Kyle's deadly, dysfunctional family. Trying to help her, trying to keep her out of Junior's sights and himself out of Junior's line of fire, Val's life is moving either very close to a very bad end or, just as dangerously, very close to a small but very dazzling piece of paradise.
With its cast of edgy eccentrics, its non-stop action, its unexpected, seamless combination of the macabre, the romantic, and the absurd, Heartbreaker promises to be one of the most audaciously entertaining reads of the season - and Robert Ferrigno's next bestseller.
'Heartbreaker is a dark, comic tour-de-force. It's consistently and casually a knockout, brutal and hilarious ... Dig it and dig it now.' James Ellroy
| Paperback - Pocket Books (1999) |
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Dead Silent
The new compelling noir novel from the author of the bestselling The Horse Latitudes - his most suspenseful novel yet
A single-hit ex-rock star, Nick Carbonne has settled into a comfortable married life in a scruffy-but-chic section of southern California. When a former friend and fellow band member shows up unannounced with his hot girlfriend, Alison, old memories and older jealousies are stirred. But Nick in no way anticipates how his life will be shaken when he returns home with Alison to find his wife and friend naked in his hot tub and oh-so-dead. With an unerring sense for character and for haunting dark secrets, Robert Ferrigno creates a living hell in which Nick and Alison take turns as both suspects and targets.
About The Author
In His Own Words…
I was born in South Florida, a tropical backwater rife with mosquitoes, flying cockroaches and the sweet stink of life. I grew up on the last paved street of a small town, spending my youth stealing science-fiction paperbacks from the local mini-mart and cutting tunnels through the palmetto thickets behind my house with a machete. Later, I regularly burned down those palmettos for the pleasure of seeing the fire trucks arrive, sirens blaring.
After earning a college degrees in Philosophy, Film-Making and Creative Writing, I thought that I would be happy as a college professor, writing dense, literary novels which I would assign to my students. I found, however, that being a professor was mostly a matter of going to meetings, and that I hated even reading, let alone writing dense, literary novels. Instead, I went back to my first love, poker.
I spent the next five years gambling full-time and living in a high-crime area populated by starving artists, alcoholics, thieves and drug dealers. I was comfortable there, and became friends with many people who would later populate my novels, the “loveable, but dangerous sleazeballs” as they have often been described. After a time, I got restless and used some of my winnings to start a punk rock magazine called The Rocket, where I interviewed the Clash, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, etc. The success of The Rocket got me a job as a feature writer for a daily newspaper in Southern California, where I took the adventure-and-new-money beat. Over the next seven years I flew jets with the Blue Angels, drove Ferraris and went for desert survival training with gun nuts. More importantly, the newspaper taught me to train my eye and ear, to observe, to research, and how to use direct, concise language to create a character, and set a scene. The newspaper was a great gig but I wanted to write novels. I quit my day job and started the real work.
My first novel, The Horse Latitudes, was called “the fiction debut of the season” by Time magazine. My seventh and most recent novel, Scavenger Hunt, was described by the Washington Post as “Quentin Tarantino territory, with drugged-out and sometimes violent people in search of novel sensory overload, but what makes it all not just bearable, but often compelling, is Ferrigno’s scorching wit and his relentless moral sense.” Scavenger Hunt has since been nominated for a Shamus award as best novel by the Private Eye Writers of America. (winner to be announced at the 2004 Bouchercon, Toronto, Canada, in October)
I believe crime novels to be one of the highest forms of writing. At their best they are an honest portrayal of the human heart, within the context of love, ambition, greed and betrayal. They also allow plenty of room for humor, intricate plotting and the highly-charged language of the streets. Just like life, the good guys are usually tainted, and sometimes the bad guys win. While I can no longer understand a word of my undergraduate thesis on the philosophy of British logical positivist, Ludwig Wittgenstein, thanks to researching my novels, I can steal a locked car within thirty seconds, effectively clear a jammed Mac-10 machine gun, and make crystal methadrine from ingredients found in any supermarket. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I currently live in the Pacific NorthWest, and can be contacted through my email at (rcferrigno@comcast.net)
Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.
The Wake Up
(Hutchinson,
2005)
Pantheon, 2004 (US)
Jan 05
Scavenger Hunt
(Hutchinson,
2003)
Pantheon, 2003 (US) - Nominated for a Shamus in the Best Novel Category, by the Private Eye Writers of America
Arrow Pbk Jan 04
Flinch
(Hutchinson,
2001)
Pantheon, 2001 (US)
Hutchinson Mar 01
Arrow Pbk Jan 03
Heartbreaker
(Hutchinson,
1999)
Pantheon, 1999 (US)
Hutchinson Aug 99
Arrow Pbk Jun 00
Dead Silent
(Simon & Schuster,
1996)
Putnam, 1996 (US)
Pocket Books Pbk Jan 99
Dead Man's Dance
(Simon & Schuster,
1995)
Putnam, 1995 (US)
Cheshire Moon
(Simon & Schuster,
1993)
Morrow, 1993 (US)
The Horse Latitudes
(Hamish Hamilton,
1990)
Morrow, 1990 (US)
Arrow Pbk Jun 03
The Wake Up
Email: 
by Robert Ferrigno
