From Publishers Weekly
This sixth novel in Wilson's gutsy Repairman Jack series (after Hosts) teams the righteous urban mercenary with his strangest bedfellows yet: a pair of sham spirit mediums who openly operate their occult con game out of a brownstone in Queens. His hardboiled skepticism notwithstanding, Jack takes the case of brothers Lyle and Charlie Kenton, who've been threatened by other Big Apple pseudo-psychics for horning in on the lucrative seance scene. No sooner has Jack begun using the tricks of the spiritualist trade on the Kentons' persecutors than real ghosts begin popping up along with a secret cult of ritual child murderers. As though this weren't enough, Jack is also confronted with imminent and unexpected fatherhood, which may force him to forsake the anonymity crucial to his underground enterprises. Readers know they can count on Wilson to weave the most unruly narrative strands into a tight Gordian plot and he doesn't disappoint here. Though heavy with talk and weak attempts at hip-hop jargon, the tale still speeds briskly to its spooky climax, subtly referencing other books in Wilson's canon (notably The Keep) and developing Jack's role as a warrior against the malignant cosmic force he calls "the Otherness." Above all, the novel enhances the enigma of Jack, a hero who commands respect despite his curmudgeonly disdain for contemporary culture, his morally ambiguous work-for-hire ethic and his unsettling appeal to the vigilante in every reader. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"F. Paul Wilson is a hot writer, and his hottest, and my favorite, creation is Repairman Jack."-Joe R. Lansdale
"Jack is righteous!" -Andrew Vachss
Book Description
F. Paul Wilson's engaging, self-employed, off-the-books fixer, Repairman Jack, returns for another intense, action-packed adventure just a little over the border into the weird, in The Haunted Air. First introduced years ago in the bestseller The Tomb, Jack has been the hero of a series of exciting novels set in and around New York City, including Legacies, Conspiracies, All the Rage, and Hosts. "Repairman Jack is a wonderful character, ultracompetent but still vulnerable. Wilson strolls into X-Files territory and makes it his own, keeping the action brisk and the level of suspense steadily rising," said the San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle.
Repairman Jack doesn't believe a house can be haunted. But he's about to change that tune . . .
It started off as a lark, a late-night jaunt from a boring party to the home of a psychic medium, with Jack dragged along as a reluctant participant. But as soon as Jack and Gia step across the threshold, the house and the earth itself shake to the accompaniment of a tortured scream.
Menelaus Manor sits atop a major geologic fault known as Cameron's Line. But that's not it's only problem. The house has a horrific history. Its original owner died of cancer; his son blew his brains out in the basement; the couple that bought it next were found dead in their bed with their throats slashed; shortly thereafter a child was horribly mutilated in an upstairs bedroom.
The current owners, Lyle and Charlie Kenton, clever practitioners of spiritualist hocus-pocus, use high-tech tricks to dupe their marks. Perhaps they're too good: they've lured too many clients from other mediums and are now under attack. Unable to go to the police for fear of exposing their own scams, they hire Repairman Jack to fix their problem.
Jack takes the job, figuring he'll straighten out the situation by engaging in one of his favorite pastimes: scamming a scammer. But soon he learns that this fix-it involves more than professional jealousy in the spook trade. The earthquake marked the awakening of something in Menelaus Manor, something that used to be someone, an entity full of rage and brought back for a specific purpose.
But this entity has an agenda all its own . . .
Before he's finished Jack will travel from the seamy world of psychic scams to the inner circle of a well-connected murder cult, and finally into the dark heart of madness where he must strike a deal with a rage-filed entity returned from the dead.
About the Author
F. Paul Wilson, a New York Times bestselling author of horror, adventure, medical thrillers, science fiction, and virtually everything in between, is a practicing physician who resides in Wall, New Jersey.
The Haunted Air (Repairman Jack Series) FROM THE PUBLISHER
"In Astoria, Queens, the lively ethnic neighborhood just across the river from Manhattan, a house is being haunted by the ghost of a nine-year-old girl in riding clothes. More than two decades before, she'd been abducted from stables in Brooklyn. Now it's up to Jack to uncover the truth of her story and liberate the pretty, blond spirit. Perhaps the answer is in the odd little store called the Shurio Coppe? Ah, but that would be telling." Jack does things no human being should be able to do, but we watch, in horrified fascination, as the forces of evil seem about to triumph and fill the world with eternal darkness. And then - but you must read the book.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
This sixth novel in Wilson's gutsy Repairman Jack series (after Hosts) teams the righteous urban mercenary with his strangest bedfellows yet: a pair of sham spirit mediums who openly operate their occult con game out of a brownstone in Queens. His hardboiled skepticism notwithstanding, Jack takes the case of brothers Lyle and Charlie Kenton, who've been threatened by other Big Apple pseudo-psychics for horning in on the lucrative seance scene. No sooner has Jack begun using the tricks of the spiritualist trade on the Kentons' persecutors than real ghosts begin popping up along with a secret cult of ritual child murderers. As though this weren't enough, Jack is also confronted with imminent and unexpected fatherhood, which may force him to forsake the anonymity crucial to his underground enterprises. Readers know they can count on Wilson to weave the most unruly narrative strands into a tight Gordian plot and he doesn't disappoint here. Though heavy with talk and weak attempts at hip-hop jargon, the tale still speeds briskly to its spooky climax, subtly referencing other books in Wilson's canon (notably The Keep) and developing Jack's role as a warrior against the malignant cosmic force he calls "the Otherness." Above all, the novel enhances the enigma of Jack, a hero who commands respect despite his curmudgeonly disdain for contemporary culture, his morally ambiguous work-for-hire ethic and his unsettling appeal to the vigilante in every reader. (Dec. 4) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Sixth outing for Repairman Jack, after Hosts (2001), in which Jack rediscovered his sister Kate, a lesbian (now dead), and saved us from a huge sentience entering mankind through mind-altering drugs spread by The Unity. Jack, an anonymous vigilante, time and again pulls us back from full surrender to occult forces. He himself has never been fingerprinted, avoids credit cards, is a mystery man not far from a comic strip hero, and his novels have come to mix the supernatural, horror, suspense, science fiction, and smart medical hooks. In the ghost story here, it's not giving away too much to say that this time out Jack fights a child-murdering group called The Circle and that the huge sentience mentioned above, the Otherness, clearly has the world under its spell. There apparently also exists an anti-Otherness, which or who opens passages for all of Jack's actions throughout the series and hurls him against the first Otherness-though Jack has free will. Mourning Kate, Jack is taken by pregnant girlfriend Gia to a kooky loft party in Queens. They go with painter Junie Moon to see Ifasen, a psychic. But as Gia enters, the psychic's house shakes and a fissure opens in the cellar, all to a human screech as from the damned. Then Jack spies a bullet hole in Ifasen's window. It turns out that Ifasen's real name is Lyle and that he and his brother Charlie run a fake psychic setup, stealing customers from richer psychics who are so angry at Lyle and Charlie that only Jack can repair the damage. Poltergeists, ghosts, and a haunted airwall appear. One child has had her heart dug out in a series of child sacrifices by The Circle as it tries to gain immortality from the Otherness. Subplots branch andcome together as Jack takes on The Circle. The Otherness remains to play another day. Entertaining fan-fodder but no chiller like The Exorcist or Lovecraft's Cthulhu sentiences.
Art & Photography
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