I have said it before and I will say it again, Repairman Jack, the main character in a series of books by F. Paul Wilson, is the coolest character in fiction, period. No one else can match him. Some come close, Harry Keogh from the Necroscope series by Brian Lumley is one, Lucas Davenport from John Sandford’s Prey series is another, but nothing they do tops the events and action that Repairman Jack finds himself in, events and action that I almost never got a chance to read because for several years I would see the name Repairman Jack in the book description and think to myself what a stupid name and move on to a different author. That opinion soon fled, however, after reading The Tomb (the first Repairman Jack novel) and has continued to stay far away as I read every novel and story featuring this character -- and every novel and story the author F. Paul Wilson has written -- my mind always eagerly anticipating the next Repairman Jack adventure.
Legacies is the second book to feature Repairman Jack, and, in my opinion, contains some of the most memorable scenes of this characters existence. The first one involves his recovery of some stolen Christmas toys that a junkie ripped off from a Children’s AIDS Center that had spent several months collecting in hopes of giving the poor dying children a nice Christmas morning surprise. Thankfully one of the volunteers working with the children is a lady named Gia who just happens to be in a relationship with Repairman Jack and is able to convince him to go find the missing toys. He does, though rather than just returning the toys, he teaches the junkie a lesson, one which the junkie and anyone else thinking of stealing from the AIDS center in the future will not soon forget. Because of this the lady in charge of the AIDS Center decides to hire Repairman Jack to fix another problem she has, one which involves her father’s will and has seen the murder of everyone she has hired to help out with it. Jack takes the ‘fix it’ job and soon finds himself in a landscape full of well funded, desperate men, most of whom have something major to lose if the instructions within the man’s will are carried out. It is because of these men that another memorable scene unfolds, this one involving a booby trapped house Jack has set up out in the woods in case he is ever followed by people that want to do him harm. At first the men who have followed him think the house is a joke because most of the booby traps end with funny gags. Soon, however, they learn that these traps were put in place to distract them from the real traps; ones which have no comedic value whatsoever for those experiencing them. Of course, like all of the Repairman Jack novels there are many other great little ‘fix it’ scenes that happen as he works with multiple clients, one involving him scamming a scam artist, another involving his friends car that is being broken into by three punks, but the first two I mentioned are my favorites and ones that I reread all the time just for the hell of it because they are so good.
Now, as some of you may know from my other F. Paul Wilson’s reviews, I recommend reading his books in order even though no real order is given on the face of the covers because many of characters in the Repairman Jack books are continuous and it really is best to get to know them as they grow from one book to the next. Also, there is a bigger underlying story that contains all of these books, one that isn’t revealed too much in the first two novels (The Tomb and Legacies), but does start to unfold with the third book, Conspiracies. This underlying story is amazing and is another reason these books are so enticing. So, snowed in this week? Grab The Tomb and Legacies and start reading. You won’t be disappointed. Just make sure you have enough money or credit standing by to grab the rest of his books as well, because you won’t want to go without them for long.
Note: I did just discover then when buying these books online they do note the order in which you should read them, but the publishers still haven’t marked the covers yet which would be helpful for those shopping in an actual brick and mortar store.
Legacies is the second book to feature Repairman Jack, and, in my opinion, contains some of the most memorable scenes of this characters existence. The first one involves his recovery of some stolen Christmas toys that a junkie ripped off from a Children’s AIDS Center that had spent several months collecting in hopes of giving the poor dying children a nice Christmas morning surprise. Thankfully one of the volunteers working with the children is a lady named Gia who just happens to be in a relationship with Repairman Jack and is able to convince him to go find the missing toys. He does, though rather than just returning the toys, he teaches the junkie a lesson, one which the junkie and anyone else thinking of stealing from the AIDS center in the future will not soon forget. Because of this the lady in charge of the AIDS Center decides to hire Repairman Jack to fix another problem she has, one which involves her father’s will and has seen the murder of everyone she has hired to help out with it. Jack takes the ‘fix it’ job and soon finds himself in a landscape full of well funded, desperate men, most of whom have something major to lose if the instructions within the man’s will are carried out. It is because of these men that another memorable scene unfolds, this one involving a booby trapped house Jack has set up out in the woods in case he is ever followed by people that want to do him harm. At first the men who have followed him think the house is a joke because most of the booby traps end with funny gags. Soon, however, they learn that these traps were put in place to distract them from the real traps; ones which have no comedic value whatsoever for those experiencing them. Of course, like all of the Repairman Jack novels there are many other great little ‘fix it’ scenes that happen as he works with multiple clients, one involving him scamming a scam artist, another involving his friends car that is being broken into by three punks, but the first two I mentioned are my favorites and ones that I reread all the time just for the hell of it because they are so good.
Now, as some of you may know from my other F. Paul Wilson’s reviews, I recommend reading his books in order even though no real order is given on the face of the covers because many of characters in the Repairman Jack books are continuous and it really is best to get to know them as they grow from one book to the next. Also, there is a bigger underlying story that contains all of these books, one that isn’t revealed too much in the first two novels (The Tomb and Legacies), but does start to unfold with the third book, Conspiracies. This underlying story is amazing and is another reason these books are so enticing. So, snowed in this week? Grab The Tomb and Legacies and start reading. You won’t be disappointed. Just make sure you have enough money or credit standing by to grab the rest of his books as well, because you won’t want to go without them for long.
Note: I did just discover then when buying these books online they do note the order in which you should read them, but the publishers still haven’t marked the covers yet which would be helpful for those shopping in an actual brick and mortar store.
2 comments:
I totally agree that Repairman Jack is one of the greatest literary creations of our time (although I also vote for Peter Straub's Timothy Underhill). I appreciate the fact that Jack is confined to one specific genre--book one had a horror element, while book two (if anything) contained only the slightest twinge of sci-fi. He's a diverse motherfucker...and a deadly one, too.
Long live Repairman Jack.
--J/Metro
I will have to check out Peter Straub's Timothy Underhill. I have all his books in a box somewhere and really need to pull them out. I do enjoy his work as well, but haven't yet come across Timothy Underhill.
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