Here's the opening of F. Paul Wilson's bio at the Repairman Jack site:
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Paul was born May 17, 1946, and raised in New Jersey where he misspent his youth playing with matches, poring over Uncle Scrooge and E.C. comics, reading Lovecraft, Matheson, Bradbury, and Heinlein, listening to Chuck Berry and Alan Freed on the radio, and watching Soupy Sales and horror movies.
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Sounds like a good foundation for a future adventure writer.
And Wilson's love of movies is matched by his lead character in The Tomb, Repairman Jack. The Tomb, which introduces this character, is the second entry in what Wilson calls "The Adversary" cycle.
Repairman Jack is an excellent updating of the pulp vigilante character. Like Andrew Vachss' series character Burke, Jack lives between the lines of the infrastructural grid that makes up modern life in these United States. No Social Security number. Pay by cash only. Never use the same last name twice. Keep a low profile, stay off the authorities' radar. Live on the fringes, in the shadows. The reasons that Jack follows this lifestyle is explained in The Tomb.
Again like Burke, Jack takes on jobs to "fix" situations. In The Tomb, Jack's special expertise is sought simultaneously by two very different people. But as the novel progresses, Wilson makes clear that the two situations are actually tightly entwined.
When an old lady disappears, Jack's ex-girlfriend Gia asks him to find her. He eventually learns that the missing woman, her sister, and Gia's daughter Vicky are doomed by a family curse being carried out by Jack's other client, Kusum Bahkti. The events unroll in a pulp-flavored adventure seasoned with horror and fast action as Jack battles a boat-load of un-human monsters that obey Kusum's commands and feed on human flesh.
This is a dandy, fast-paced thriller that should suit most fans of contemporary pulp adventure fiction. If you like Vachss' Burke novels, if you enjoy Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt thrillers -- but don't necessarily need the high-tech setting -- you'll find Repairman Jack to your liking.
-submitted by Louis King Glass
LINKS
F. Paul Wilson site: http://www.siue.edu/~kcole/f.paul/index.html
Repairman Jack site: http://www.repairmanjack.com/
You can learn more about The Tomb from Amazon.com. To do so, or to purchase the book, click here.
Posted by ds at October 21, 2002 02:48 PM
