Legacies: A Repairman Jack Novel (Repairman Jack Novels) [Mass Market Paperback]

F. Paul Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Repairman Jack Novels | Publication Date: February 7, 2005

Repairman Jack isn't your average appliance repairman--he fixes situations for people, often risking his own life. Jack has no last name, no social security number, works only for cash, and has no qualms when it comes to seeing that the job gets done.

Dr. Alicia Clayton, a pediatrician who treats children with AIDS, is full of secrets, and she has just inherited a house that holds another. Haunted by painful memories, Alicia wants the house destroyed--but somehow everyone she enlists to help ends up violently killed. The house holds a powerful secret, and Alicia's charmless brother Thomas seems willing to do anything to get his hands on that secret himself.

But not if Repairman Jack can find it first!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Urban mercenary Repairman Jack is back after a long hiatus, but Wilson's work-for-hire outlaw has clearly lost his edge since his last novel-length adventure, The Tomb (1984). Although still a lean and mean equalizer who makes his living "fixing" personal injustices, he has developed a soft spot for the kind of sympathetic victim that no conscientious defender could refuse. This new escapade pairs him with Alicia Clayton, head of a pediatric AIDS clinic in Manhattan, who has inherited a valuable Murray Hill townhouse from her estranged father. Alicia would love to destroy the building and with it memories of childhood sexual abuse she suffered there, but she is prevented by her slimy half-brother, Thomas, who offers to buy the house for an outrageous sum of money and whom she suspects is responsible for the violent deaths of everyone she hires to dispose of it. Jack eventually teases out the intricate thread that binds Thomas, his secret Saudi Arabian backers, an enigmatic Japanese spy and Alicia's secret shame to the property, but not without considerable help from fortuitous coincidences, lucky deductions and unlikely motives. Wilson (Deep as the Marrow) tries to prop up the shaky logic of his tale with preachy attacks against drug abuse, child pornography and parental irresponsibility, but these issues are too weighty for his pulpy villains and strained plot to bear. Jack still thrills with cliffhanger escapes and ingenious snares for the blundering bad guys, but he emerges from this novel less a hero than a hostage to its social consciousness.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Repairman Jack is back. The hero of Wilson's The Tomb, a New York Times best seller in 1984, is hired to fix a problem for Dr. Alicia Clayton: She's inherited a house she wants destroyed, given its dark past, but someone is getting in her way.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books (February 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812571991
• ISBN-13: 978-0812571998
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #400,073 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #77 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror > Occult

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

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jack is Righteous!, December 17, 2000

By 

Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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

The second novel in F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack series has a complex and occasionally violent storyline worthy as a sequel to the great 1984 novel "The Tomb." Unlike the former novel, however, this one does not take a supernatural turn. Instead it unfolds like a highly unconventional private detective tale, with plenty of twists and turns along the way. As a tarnished white knight operating on the wrong side of the law, Jack is similar to Andrew Vachss's classic character Burke. My only quibble with the novel is that the characters of Gia and Vicky, the mother and daughter Jack saved in "The Tomb" are held over here but add little if anything to the story. With all that he's been through, Jack ought to be far too emotionally shattered to ever form a stable relationship. This aspect of the novel goes nowhere, other than to provide Jack with some highly unlikely domestric tranquility.

Nevertheless, fans of "The Tomb" will find plenty to like, especially in the unique ways that Jack finds to defeat his adversaries. As such, it is another winner for Wilson.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jack's back!, June 28, 2001

By 

Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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

F. Paul Wilson, Legacies (Tor, 1998)

Wilson brings back one of his hardcore fans' favorite characters, Repairman Jack, and weaves three of Jack's jobs into a tightly-wound tale of family manipulation and, as always, saving the world one step at a time.

This time, Jack is employed by longtime on-again-off-again girlfriend Gia to recover a roomful of toys stolen from a children's AIDS crisis center, which leads him into the employ of the head of the center. She just inherited a house, and she wants Jack to burn it down. Jack's curiosity gets the best of him, and he starts wondering why. There the fun begins.

If you're familiar with Wilson's work, you're getting what you've come to expect. Easy reading, a pace that wouldn't be out of place in a formula 1 racecar, likable characters (even the bad guys), and a dose of the supernatural, albeit a smaller one than in most of Wilson's work. If you haven't discovered the joys of F. Paul yet, start back at the beginning of our first encounter with Jack, the Nightworld books (The Keep, The Tomb, The Touch, Reborn, Reprisal, and Nightworld) to get up to speed. He's not as well known as some of the authors working in the supernatural-thriller field, but he's just as good. *** 1/2

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Repairman Jack Is Back in a big way!!!!!, September 22, 1998

By 

P. Legerski (Corona, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Legacies (Hardcover)

LEGACIES brings back one of my favorite characters, Repairman Jack. Jack "fixes" problems for people. He does not exist. A vigillante for hire. In this novel, Jack runs up against an Arab Nation looking to get it's hands on something in Alicia's fathers' house. Trouble is, Alicia's father dies in a plane wreck and she has no intention of ever going back into the house due to some past torment...enter Repairman Jack. After he helps Alicia out on a smaller job, she confides in him that people all around her are dying. There are at least 3 subplots working at all times here and all 3, when connected, make for a supreme read. F. Paul Wilson has outdone himself with great characters, a moving action-filled plot and a few surprises on the way. High Recommendation