Bloodline: A Repairman Jack Novel (F. Paul Wilson)

I've read all the RJ novels and this one was by far my least favorite. While it shared may of the same problems as HARBINGERS (mostly a meandering supernatural plotline and little-to-no "fixin'"), this novel had the added "bonus" of just sort of...stopping. There is no real wrapping up of the story, just sort of an intermission until it picks up in the next book; while this isn't the first time I have seen this tactic used for series-style novels, it never fails to bother the heck out of me. It's getting harder and harder for me to care about Jack's exploits, mostly because they are getting more and more unbelievable. There is a particular part of the book that really seemed to be jumping the shark (a particular novelist of the "Jake Fixx" persuasion; deliver me from writer's in-jokes...), and all in all I wished that it had been closer to the earlier Jack books - more fixin', less supernatural-related nonsense.

Wilson is still going strong in his latest Repairman Jack book. If you like supernatural thrillers, like the X-files, you will love Repairman Jack. Not quite as much action as some of Wilsons other books, but the story more than makes up for this. It is a very hard book to put down.

For those new to the series, Repairman Jack doesn't officially exist. He has no social security number, no tax records, no legal identity of any kind. When people have a problem, he's available to fix it. For a price. He has also been sucked into a kind of underground war between two god-like entities. One called the Otherness would destroy the Earth as we know it and the Ally would preserve things as they are. In this installment of the series, Jack gets a client, Christy Pickering, whose 18 year-old daughter, Dawn, has gotten involved with a man old enough to be her father. Christy believes the man is trouble and wants Jack to dig up the dirt. The case seems simple enough on the surface but before long Jack is knee deep in a government conspiracy, genetic experimentation, and even abortionist murders in Atlanta. While key elements of the story tie back to the ongoing struggle between the Ally and the Otherness, the foes Jack must deal with are strictly human with no superna... Read more

Repairman Jack novels ought to be written until the year 2150. Why not? That will be the case for the James Bond thrillers, and as good as they are, they do not hold a candle to the Repairman Jack books. I opened the book, half fearing that Gia would no longer be with us. Or maybe Vicki. F. Paul Wilson knows how to ratchet up the tension, and leave you restlessly waiting for the next book to be published.

Jack seems to be doing stuff "just because"--lacks some of the sparkle of earlier novels.