Repairman Jack
Created by F. Paul Wilson

First introduced in the 1984 novel The Tomb, horror writer F. Paul Wilson's REPAIRMAN JACK is an appealling character. He's not a private eye, per se -- he's been called everything from an "urban mercenary" to a "paranormal fixer" but what he does certainly qualifies him as an honourary eye. He repairs things -- basically he fixes situations for people, and he's handy with tools.

He lives in Manhattan, with no last name or social security number, and works for cash only. Instead he lives under a variety of names and identities, and tries to keep below the radar of any and all authority. Can you say paranoid? And he's willing to do what must be done to help his clients, up to and including murder. He relies on a underground network of contacts, mostly shadow people themselves, from arms dealers to building hackers, and shows a propensity for building some truly lethal little gadgets. Imagine Andrew Vachss' Burke without the obsession, or television's Mr. Chapel (of Vengeance Unlimited) without the questionable sanity, and you've got a good idea of what Jack's all about.

Unfortunately, while Jack may qualify as a P.I., the one book I've read by him, the long-awaited sequel to The Tomb, 1998's Legacies, must register as a bit of a disappointment. A tight little 200-page tale of justice for hire is stretched out and puffed up to make an almost 400-page padded thriller full of international intrigue that actually dilutes and weakens the story's impact. But Jack is such a compelling character, I'm gonna try to give him another shot. And even better, it looks like Jack's back with a vengeance. In 2000, Wilson released two more books featuring everyone's fave fixit man, Conspiracies and All the Rage, which tie the first two books together, as one fan puts it, "in ways you can't imagine!"

He goes on to say "It's almost as if Wilson made the second book a little cut-and-dry in order to set up the kill in the third book. The rest of the books afterwards follow the new underlying theme established in the third book so you might get hooked."

Best known for his horror writing, Wilson is also responsible for 1989's Dydeetown World, a sci-fi novel about a down-and-out gumshoe called Sig Dreyer trying to keep it together in a world populated by clones of dinosaurs and dead movie stars.

UNDER OATH

• "Jack is righteous!" (Andrew Vachss, on The Tomb)
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• "No one does this kind of weird meets crime better...gripping, fascinating, one of a kind." (Joe R. Lansdale, on The Tomb)

NOVELS

• The Tomb (1984) . Buy this book
• Legacies (1998). Buy this book
• Conspiracies (2000). Buy this book
• All the Rage (2000). Buy this book
• Hosts (2001) . Buy this book
• The Haunted Air (2002) . Buy this book
• Gateways (2003). Buy this book
• Crisscross (2004). Buy this book
• Infernal (2005) . Buy this book
• Harbingers (2006) . Buy this book
• Bloodline (2007) . Buy this book

SHORT STORIES

• "A Day in the Life" (1989, Stalkers; also 1998, The Barrens and Others)
• "The Last Rakosh" (1990, The World Fantasy Convention 1990 Program Book)
• "Home Repairs" (1991, Cold Blood)
• "The Long Way Home" (1992, Dark at Heart)
• "The Wringer" (1996, Night Screams)
• "The Long Way Home" (2005, Amazon.com) . Buy this short story

RELATED LINKS

• The Official Repairman Jack Website
  Quick, in here! Did anyone follow you?
  
  
• I Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts: Fantasy and Occult Eyes
  Eyes that specialize in things that go bump in the night.

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Special thanks to Hy for the heads-up on the short stories, and Phil for clueing me in on recent news.