Infernal: A Repairman Jack Novel (Repairman Jack Novels) [Hardcover]

F. Paul Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Repairman Jack Novels | Publication Date: October 20, 2005

The ninth Repairman Jack novel brims with murder, international terrorism, sibling rivalry, and a truly infernal device. A mutual tragedy throws Jack together with his brother Tom, a judge from Philadelphia. They've never been close, and it doesn't take Jack long realize that's a good thing. Tom and he are opposites.
Still, Tom convinces Jack to go on a trip to get to know each other better. He has a map locating a wreck off the coast of Bermuda and wants Jack to help him find it. Reluctantly Jack agrees. But instead of treasure they find a strange object, part organic, part manmade, known as the Lilitongue of Gefreda. Ancient lore claims that it is a means "to elude all enemies and leave them helpless." The big question is, why does Tom want such a thing?
And if the Lilitongue lives up to the legend, where does it take you? No one seems to know. Matters take a bizarre and dangerous turn-no surprise for a Repairman Jack novel--when someone accidentally activates the Lilitongue.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Wilson's well-wrought ninth Repairman Jack novel (after 2004's Crisscross), the off-the-books fix-it man, urban vigilante and paranormal adventurer reconnects with his estranged brother, Tom, after their father is gunned down in a terrorist attack at La Guardia Airport. Tom, a corrupt Philadelphia judge who's fleeing the law and rapidly running out of money, persuades Jack to help him look for the wreckage of a Spanish treasure ship that sank in 1598 off Bermuda. Instead of treasure, however, the brothers haul up an odd, skin-covered, oblong object known as the Lilitongue of Gefreda. It looks harmless enough, but research tells them that those who come in contact with it vanish to the "Otherness." The plot moves briskly but never recklessly, the dialogue is salty and witty, and the characters have enough dimension to elevate them above the genre pack. Jack, introduced more than 20 years ago, is aging gracefully.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Repairman Jack, the fix-it man who deals in the marginally supernatural, returns in another out-of-this-world adventure. It begins with tragedy: Jack's father is killed during a terrorist attack on an airport. This thrusts Jack and his brother, Tom, together. The two men have never been close (Tom is a judge; Jack lives off the grid), but Tom persuades Jack to accompany him on, of all things, a shipwreck hunt. What they find is something altogether more interesting and a great deal more dangerous: the Lilitongue of Gefreda, a device (sort of) that serves as a portal to another dimension (kind of). Naturally, things get very weird very fast, and in no time Jack must summon all his skills to escape certain death. A worthy addition to the Repairman Jack series. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books; 1st edition (October 20, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765312751
• ISBN-13: 978-0765312754
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #582,019 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born toward the end of the Jurassic Period and raised in New Jersey where I misspent my 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, and watching Soupy Sales and horror movies. I sold my first story in the Cretaceous Period and have been writing ever since. (Even that dinosaur-killer asteroid couldn't stop me.)

I've written in just about every genre - science fiction, fantasy, horror, a children's Christmas book (with a monster, of course), medical thrillers, political thrillers, even a religious thriller (long before that DaVinci thing). So far I've got about 33 books and 100 or so short stories under my name in 24 languages.

THE KEEP, THE TOMB, HARBINGERS, and BY THE SWORD all appeared on the New York Times Bestsellers List. WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS won the first Prometheus Award in 1979; THE TOMB received the Porgie Award from The West Coast Review of Books. My novelette "Aftershock" received the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for short fiction. DYDEETOWN WORLD was on the young adult recommended reading lists of the American Library Association and the New York Public Library, among others (God knows why). I received the prestigious Inkpot Award from San Diego ComiCon and the Pioneer Award from the RT Booklovers Convention. I'm listed in the 50th anniversary edition of Who's Who in America. (That plus $3 will buy you a girly coffee at Starbuck's.)

My novel THE KEEP was made into a visually striking but otherwise incomprehensible movie (screenplay and direction by Michael Mann) from Paramount in 1983. My original teleplay "Glim-Glim" first aired on Monsters. An adaptation of my short story "Menage a Trois" was part of the pilot for The Hunger series that debuted on Showtime in July 1997.

And then there's the epic saga of the Repairman Jack film. After 14 years in development hell with half a dozen writers and at least a dozen scripts, THE TOMB is finally moving toward production as "Repairman Jack" from Beacon Films and Touchstone. The plan is to make Jack a franchise character. (Gotta tell you: all the years of this has worn me out.)

I've done a few collaborations too. One with Steve Spruill on NIGHTKILL, and a bunch with Matthew J. Costello. Matt and I did world design, characters, and story arcs for Sci-Fi Channel's FTL NewsFeed, a daily newscast set 150 years in the future. An FTL NewsFeed was the first program broadcast by the new channel when it launched in September 1992. We took over scripting the Newsfeeds (the equivalent of a 4-1/2 hour movie per year) in 1994 and continued until its cancellation in December 1996.

We did script and design for MATHQUEST WITH ALADDIN (Disney Interactive - 1997) with voices by Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters, and the same for The Interactive DARK HALF for Orion Pictures, based on the Stephen King novel, but this project was orphaned when MGM bought Orion. (It's officially vaporware now.) We even wrote a stageplay, "Syzygy," which opened in St. Augustine, Florida, in March, 2000.

I'm tired of talking about myself, so I'll close by saying that I live and work at the Jersey Shore where I'm usually pounding away on a new Repairman Jack novel and haunting eBay for strange clocks and Daddy Warbucks memorabilia. (No, we don't have a cat.)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Repairman Jack reconnects with his older brother, October 31, 2005

By 

Henry W. Wagner (Rockaway, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Infernal: A Repairman Jack Novel (Repairman Jack Novels) (Hardcover)

After publishing his outstanding horror debut, The Keep, in 1981, F. Paul Wilson subsequently added five more books to what came to be known as the "Adversary Cycle": The Tomb (1984), The Touch (1986), Reborn (1990), Reprisal (1991), and Nightworld (1992). Those books introduced several concepts that came to form the core of much of Wilson's fictional universe: the ancient, evil entity called Rasalom, his eternal opponent Glaeken, the town of Monroe, Long Island (Wilson's analog of Arkham, Oxrun Station, and Castle Rock), the wandering healing spirit known as the Dat-tay-vao (first seen in The Touch), and the modern pulp hero known as Repairman Jack.

Jack, who labors mightily to conceal his existence from the world, made his first appearance in The Tomb. Left near death at the end of that novel, Jack reappeared in Nightworld, playing a key role in frustrating Rasalom's bid to enslave humanity. Jack's fans proving persistent, Wilson responded with a new Repairman Jack novel, titled Legacies in 1998, following it with Conspiracies (1999), All the Rage (2000), Hosts (2001), The Haunted Air (2002), Gateways (2003) and CrissCross (2004). Set between the events in The Tomb and Nightworld, the books chronicle Jack's growing awareness of the battle between Rasalom and the entity he refers to as "the Otherness" or " the Ally." Similar to the late Isaac Asimov, Wilson is working to link the bulk of his fictional output, subtly revising the books in the Adversary Cycle to fit the new continuity he is creating through his Repairman Jack novels.

Infernal, the eighth installment in Jack's ongoing saga, opens innocently enough, with Jack arriving at the airport to pick up his father, whom readers got to know in Gateways. To avoid spoilers, no more will be said about the sobering events depicted in the book's first few pages--suffice it to say that those happenings will change Jack's outlook on life forever. They will also bring the Repairman's ne'er-do-well older brother Tom back into his life, resulting in an uneasy alliance between the siblings that places all Jack holds dear into jeopardy.

This book will be most appreciated by long standing fans of the series, as Wilson relies heavily on past events and relationships to power the novel, even as he maneuvers his character into position for the windup of the series. That's not to say that it doesn't work fine as a stand alone novel, only that the reading experience will be enhanced for those who are familiar with past events in the series (and, as an aside, for Charles Dickens fans!).

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Different, October 28, 2005

By 

Marc B. (Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Infernal: A Repairman Jack Novel (Repairman Jack Novels) (Hardcover)

While I can understand the negative criticisms posted here the only thing I will agree with is that this book isn't one of the better RJ books. I think the main reason people are disappointed with INFERNAL is because it doesn't follow F. Paul Wilson's usual formula for the RJ series (i.e. several "fix-it" jobs while the main job involves The Otherness). While the book is very one-dimensional I have to give credit to Paul for changing the formula a bit to try and give the RJ series a bit of freshness.

While the change doesn't completely work it is one of the darker RJ books leading up to NIGHTWORLD, an extremely dark and disturbing novel.

So if you're new to Repairman Jack INFERNAL wouldn't be the first novel I'd recommend. You'd do yourself a favor to go with THE TOMB, ALL THE RAGE or CRISSCROSS first. Save INFERNAL for a day when you're ready for a change in RJ's style.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The next time you need something (or someone) fixed - call Repairman Jack!, September 18, 2006

By 

Ric Wasley "Ric - Author - Shadow of Innocen... (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Infernal: A Repairman Jack Novel (Repairman Jack Novels) (Mass Market Paperback)

I've always been a fan of F. Paul Wilson, but I really fell in love with his Repairman Jack Series ever since I read the first one. Like all series, some of the novels are better that others and some can skirt around the edge of almost being a little too metaphysical, but the action never disappoints. And after way too many 'goody two shoes' detectives, it's always refreshing to see a protagonist who will take satisfaction in blowing the bad guy's head off just because it feels good to even up the score. And with Infernal, Jack gets caught up in a very realistic cycle of revenge that serves to make his character only more believable.
As always Jack is tough and competent and willing to break lots of rules to get the job done.
And if that means putting a bad guy underground to save a good guy (or girl), he's not going to think twice. There is no second guessing for him. He sees the world of good and evil in pretty basic shades of black and white.
But once again there are the two loves of his life to keep him from teetering over the edge. First of course is his intended bride to be and her - and also by intention, his surrogate daughter Vicky. In addition to helping him show the one little chink in his armor towards his well hidden but faintly glimmering vulnerable side, are these two people that he would (and does) do literarily anything for... even more than the various family members who appear through-out this book and the series. The family members are also interesting but perhaps the brother is perhaps just a little too scummy to make the reader believe that they came from the same family. But outside of that minor point, Infernal is another great Repairman Jack novel that makes you wish that you had Jack's number the next time you need a 'special' little job done!