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Jack Waters
The year is 1904, and Jack Waters has been expelled from his native New Orleans for the murder of man he caught cheating at cards.
Waters escapes to the Caribbean, where he becomes embroiled in a revolution against a brutal dictator...though his reasons for fighting might not be as noble as they first appear.
Waters escapes to the Caribbean, where he becomes embroiled in a revolution against a brutal dictator...though his reasons for fighting might not be as noble as they first appear.
- GenresFiction
244 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 16, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 10, 2018
There's a certain classicism (or love of classicism) to what Scott Adlerberg writes, which makes him endearing.
JACK WATERS (my third Adlerberg novel) is the story of a poker player, turned fugitive, turn insurrectionist that resembles the epic swashbuckling novels of the nineteenth century, with a contemporary voice. It's more of a cerebral pleasure than a reading that appeals to raw and visceral feelings, but it's enthralling the same way it's enthralling to look at someone built a miniature of some historical building.
Not everyone is going to enjoy this novel. It's kind of an acquired taste, but I enjoyed Scott Adlerberg's revisionist swashbuckling and if you read this, you might too.
JACK WATERS (my third Adlerberg novel) is the story of a poker player, turned fugitive, turn insurrectionist that resembles the epic swashbuckling novels of the nineteenth century, with a contemporary voice. It's more of a cerebral pleasure than a reading that appeals to raw and visceral feelings, but it's enthralling the same way it's enthralling to look at someone built a miniature of some historical building.
Not everyone is going to enjoy this novel. It's kind of an acquired taste, but I enjoyed Scott Adlerberg's revisionist swashbuckling and if you read this, you might too.
May 30, 2022
What a fun story. For a good beach read, I would rate this highly. It reads like watching an adventure film.
Class, race, and gender conflict that doesn't fall into stereotypes? Check.
Leisurely ex-pat southerners who gamble everything? Check.
An evil dictator who has a fascination with blood and life force? Check.
An invincible wild bandit who inspires his people? Check.
Betrayal from those you love? Check.
A wild and free libertine whose husband is a loser? Check.
Alcoholism? Check.
Excessive smoking? Double check.
A protagonist who shares your name? Check.
An easter egg Teddy Roosevelt appearance? Worth the price of the book.
We all wish we could live in early 20th century America when criminals could island hop and foment revolution across banana republics.
Class, race, and gender conflict that doesn't fall into stereotypes? Check.
Leisurely ex-pat southerners who gamble everything? Check.
An evil dictator who has a fascination with blood and life force? Check.
An invincible wild bandit who inspires his people? Check.
Betrayal from those you love? Check.
A wild and free libertine whose husband is a loser? Check.
Alcoholism? Check.
Excessive smoking? Double check.
A protagonist who shares your name? Check.
An easter egg Teddy Roosevelt appearance? Worth the price of the book.
We all wish we could live in early 20th century America when criminals could island hop and foment revolution across banana republics.
February 8, 2018
In 1904, Jack Waters is a dandy poker player with a rigid code of honour that soon has him on the run after killing a card cheat. He flees to a Carribbean island only to be cheated in a card game by the country's president and soon seeks vengeance against him.
This novel is written in a classic style harking back to the turn of the 20th Century where the book is based. It's not haughty or stuffy though and zips along at a fair rate. From the limited Adlerberg work I've read he appears to be a gifted writer and the show notes for the latest episode of J. David Osborne's podcast describes Adlerberg as "one of the only writers doing whatever the fuck he wants.". It shows with this novel as it's very much unlike any of the other new releases I expect to read in the coming year.
It's a fine novel and I sensed a political undertone to it with the way the country was allowed to run with US interests dominating the ways of the island and much of the actual landmass and feel like this is something that continued on even into the 80s and 90s and possibly even up to today.
There are a couple more Adlerberg novels out there, which I'll be looking to read sometime in the near(ish) future.
This novel is written in a classic style harking back to the turn of the 20th Century where the book is based. It's not haughty or stuffy though and zips along at a fair rate. From the limited Adlerberg work I've read he appears to be a gifted writer and the show notes for the latest episode of J. David Osborne's podcast describes Adlerberg as "one of the only writers doing whatever the fuck he wants.". It shows with this novel as it's very much unlike any of the other new releases I expect to read in the coming year.
It's a fine novel and I sensed a political undertone to it with the way the country was allowed to run with US interests dominating the ways of the island and much of the actual landmass and feel like this is something that continued on even into the 80s and 90s and possibly even up to today.
There are a couple more Adlerberg novels out there, which I'll be looking to read sometime in the near(ish) future.
January 17, 2021
A Caribbean Western
No spoilers ahead:
I can only describe this novel as a Caribbean western. The story starts in New Orleans during the Civil War era. The title character, Jack Waters, makes his living gambling. His speciality is poker and he will not tolerate a cheater or welsher.
One night he caught a man cheating and killed the varmint. Jack flees to small Caribbean island to avoid the consequences. While on the island, he is welshed out of his poker winnings by the island's dictator.
Thinking himself a principled man, Jack is determined to make the dictator give him his money or get revenge against him at all cost.
This was a novel loaded with things you would find in a western novel or movie except with an exotic setting. Jack is very colorful and the author does a great job letting the reader into the inner workings of his reasoning process.
Try "Graveyard Love" by this author... it is definitely not a love story!
No spoilers ahead:
I can only describe this novel as a Caribbean western. The story starts in New Orleans during the Civil War era. The title character, Jack Waters, makes his living gambling. His speciality is poker and he will not tolerate a cheater or welsher.
One night he caught a man cheating and killed the varmint. Jack flees to small Caribbean island to avoid the consequences. While on the island, he is welshed out of his poker winnings by the island's dictator.
Thinking himself a principled man, Jack is determined to make the dictator give him his money or get revenge against him at all cost.
This was a novel loaded with things you would find in a western novel or movie except with an exotic setting. Jack is very colorful and the author does a great job letting the reader into the inner workings of his reasoning process.
Try "Graveyard Love" by this author... it is definitely not a love story!
January 20, 2018
I devoured this in one two-hour sitting yesterday. It's very lucidly written and quite enjoyable in a throwback sort of way. It's easy to imagine that it could have been written in the early 20th century, of a piece with the time when the story takes place. I do believe that was Scott Adlerberg's intention. Yet there's nothing dusty or old-fashioned about it. Adlerberg excels in psychology, especially the dark recesses of human character, and those are on display here in a way that you wouldn't find back then. The ending is also quite satisfying.
February 19, 2018
Every sharp left turn this book makes is influenced by Jack Waters' personal code of ethics, which revolve entirely around the game of poker. Waters is one of the most "chaotic neutral" characters you'll find leading a white-knuckle page-turner such as this, and having such a character be the driving force of this story is a clever play by Scott Adlerberg, especially when the plot of dictators vs. revolutionaries begins to parallel present day and it still comes off as pure entertainment despite the wide range of deep thoughts and discussions that this book will inspire.
January 7, 2019
Jack Waters is a thoroughly entertaining read. The tropical island setting and Adlerberg’s easy writing style briefly reminded me of Cuba Libre from Elmore Leonard. Like Leonard, Adlerberg can spin a great yarn.
Not wanting to give anything away, I will just say that I was left thinking about the decisions a man makes and the things he values.
Not wanting to give anything away, I will just say that I was left thinking about the decisions a man makes and the things he values.
January 17, 2018
Jack Waters is the latest book by the Brooklyn based crime author Scott Adlerberg. I make no bones about being a fan of Adlerberg’s work. One thing I particularly like is how, as an author, he is not content just to keep hitting the same note in his work.
His debut, Spiders and Flies, dealt with the predatory ambitions of a bored American fugitive on the lam in Martinque, towards a wealthy couple visiting their young daughter who is living on the island. It read like one of those exploitation crime films that were common in the eighties.
Graveyard Love switched gears completely, and delivered a giallo-style tale of a thirty five year old psychologically disturbed loner who lives with his highly strung artist mother, and his obsession with the mysterious red headed woman who regularly visits one of the crypts in the graveyard opposite their house.
In Jack Waters, Adlerberg continues his reinvention, penning an historical crime story about a rakish New Orleans schemer, the title character, whose one great passion in life is playing cards, and whose one major dislike is people who cheat. Water’s private code gets him into trouble when he kills a man for cheating, the son of a wealthy and influential Louisianan businessman. Faced with the businessman’s wrath, Waters has no choice but to flee and chooses a small, unnamed Caribbean island, where he can start his life anew. His criminal connection who helps him organise his escape gives the departing Waters one piece of advice “Don’t play cards with Hernandez Garcia,” the country’s dictatorial leader. “He hates to lose, especially to gringos.”
While Waters quickly ingratiates himself with the island’s wealthy landed gentry they are suspicious of his tendency to take off for hunting trips in the island’s impoverished but beautiful jungle interior where a rebellion is fermenting, lead by a charismatic rebel, Amoros, and his supporters, known as ‘The Fifty’.
Waters does, indeed, end up playing Garcia at cards and beats him soundly. This development, perhaps the only inevitable plot point of the novel, places the card shark in all manner of difficulty, forcing him to make a choice between his louche lifestyle and a cause which has more meaning.
Waters is a terrific character, amoral but with a strong democratic tendency. Adlerberg also paints a rich cast of supporting players, including the despotic Garcia, who has a thing for virgin’s blood, the troubled Amoros, the island’s alcoholic cuckolded US ambassador and his adventurous and intelligent wife.
At times, there is a touch of Richard Stark’s Parker about Waters and his fury at being cheated out of his gambling winnings by Garcia – 24,600 pesos to be exact – and his determination to recover the winnings due to him at any cost. But the story is far more multi-dimensional, constantly changing gears between a swashbuckling yarn and deeper deliberations about race, power and nature of revolution.
Jack Waters is a wonderfully, dark nuanced existential historical tale, that confirms Adlerberg as a talented crime writer with a knack for reinvention
His debut, Spiders and Flies, dealt with the predatory ambitions of a bored American fugitive on the lam in Martinque, towards a wealthy couple visiting their young daughter who is living on the island. It read like one of those exploitation crime films that were common in the eighties.
Graveyard Love switched gears completely, and delivered a giallo-style tale of a thirty five year old psychologically disturbed loner who lives with his highly strung artist mother, and his obsession with the mysterious red headed woman who regularly visits one of the crypts in the graveyard opposite their house.
In Jack Waters, Adlerberg continues his reinvention, penning an historical crime story about a rakish New Orleans schemer, the title character, whose one great passion in life is playing cards, and whose one major dislike is people who cheat. Water’s private code gets him into trouble when he kills a man for cheating, the son of a wealthy and influential Louisianan businessman. Faced with the businessman’s wrath, Waters has no choice but to flee and chooses a small, unnamed Caribbean island, where he can start his life anew. His criminal connection who helps him organise his escape gives the departing Waters one piece of advice “Don’t play cards with Hernandez Garcia,” the country’s dictatorial leader. “He hates to lose, especially to gringos.”
While Waters quickly ingratiates himself with the island’s wealthy landed gentry they are suspicious of his tendency to take off for hunting trips in the island’s impoverished but beautiful jungle interior where a rebellion is fermenting, lead by a charismatic rebel, Amoros, and his supporters, known as ‘The Fifty’.
Waters does, indeed, end up playing Garcia at cards and beats him soundly. This development, perhaps the only inevitable plot point of the novel, places the card shark in all manner of difficulty, forcing him to make a choice between his louche lifestyle and a cause which has more meaning.
Waters is a terrific character, amoral but with a strong democratic tendency. Adlerberg also paints a rich cast of supporting players, including the despotic Garcia, who has a thing for virgin’s blood, the troubled Amoros, the island’s alcoholic cuckolded US ambassador and his adventurous and intelligent wife.
At times, there is a touch of Richard Stark’s Parker about Waters and his fury at being cheated out of his gambling winnings by Garcia – 24,600 pesos to be exact – and his determination to recover the winnings due to him at any cost. But the story is far more multi-dimensional, constantly changing gears between a swashbuckling yarn and deeper deliberations about race, power and nature of revolution.
Jack Waters is a wonderfully, dark nuanced existential historical tale, that confirms Adlerberg as a talented crime writer with a knack for reinvention
January 11, 2018
Jack Waters is a post Civil War adventure story and a really unique book. Adlerberg's title character is a professional gambler and Louisiana expat. Instead of haunting riverboats up and down the Mississippi, Jack Waters mixes in with wealthy landowners in an unstable South American country. He's a man without a country and a man without a conscience--but don't cross him. When he's wronged prideful Jack Waters will stop at nothing to balance the scales.
On one hand this book is a literary exploration of pride, revenge, and transformation. On the other it's a fun pulp adventure story. I'm passing this book on to my friends. Adlerberg delivers a knockout.
On one hand this book is a literary exploration of pride, revenge, and transformation. On the other it's a fun pulp adventure story. I'm passing this book on to my friends. Adlerberg delivers a knockout.
April 27, 2018
Scott Adlerberg is a singlular voice in crime fiction. When everyone else is writing peril, procedurals, or PIs, he always delivers something fresh and different — and, bless him, never the same thing twice. Reading his new book JACK WATERS is like opening up an old pulpy paperback found in the seedy corner of the magazine store. You can smell the smoke in the pages. Adlerberg tells the story of a gambler whose defining characteristic (his strict code about one thing: no cheating) is exactly what lands Waters in hot water. This is a fast moving adventure tale that takes the time to touch on psychological and social issues. A great read. Highly recommended!
March 6, 2019
A fun, character driven story centered on an immoral man obsessed with his principles. Starting from poker games in post civil war New Orleans, this story goes huge distances and hits on a lot of different issues—ending up at revolution in a post-colonial Caribbean dictatorship. It’s engaging and straight forward in style, and provides a sense of wild adventure. A fun read!
February 10, 2018
What a book!
I tore through this impressive novel in a weekend, and when I closed it, it lingered in my mind for quite some time. "Neo-Conrad" isn't an established literary genre, but I think it comes the closest to describing what Adlerberg is doing here. Many decades (heck, centuries ago), we had novels in which intrepid but damaged men ventured into the unknown in order to fulfill some empty part of themselves (or just make a lot of money), and endured incredible adventures on the way; Conrad was a master of it, Burroughs was the pulpy version of it, etc.
The hero of "Jack Waters" isn't in an existential bind; he knows what he wants, he lives by a code, and he'll do whatever it takes in order to exist his way. He's both a bit of a vagabond and a well-established man, someone who uses his wits and his physical strength in equal measure. In that way, he's a very Conrad-style protagonist, even before he ventures into the jungle to help a rebellion fight against a brutal dictator.
Adlerberg has a storyteller's style, speedy and wry, with a special flair for nailing down the details that perfectly sketch every character. His update of an old-school genre is absolutely delightful.
I tore through this impressive novel in a weekend, and when I closed it, it lingered in my mind for quite some time. "Neo-Conrad" isn't an established literary genre, but I think it comes the closest to describing what Adlerberg is doing here. Many decades (heck, centuries ago), we had novels in which intrepid but damaged men ventured into the unknown in order to fulfill some empty part of themselves (or just make a lot of money), and endured incredible adventures on the way; Conrad was a master of it, Burroughs was the pulpy version of it, etc.
The hero of "Jack Waters" isn't in an existential bind; he knows what he wants, he lives by a code, and he'll do whatever it takes in order to exist his way. He's both a bit of a vagabond and a well-established man, someone who uses his wits and his physical strength in equal measure. In that way, he's a very Conrad-style protagonist, even before he ventures into the jungle to help a rebellion fight against a brutal dictator.
Adlerberg has a storyteller's style, speedy and wry, with a special flair for nailing down the details that perfectly sketch every character. His update of an old-school genre is absolutely delightful.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews