Cyndi J. (cyndij) reviewed on 10/18/2019 + 1031 more book reviews

This is the last book F. Paul Wilson wrote about Repairman Jack, although it's in the middle of the chronology. I'm not sure if this trilogy really gave me a good idea on the evolution of Repairman Jack. Wilson wanted to tell a story about the first World Trade Center bombing, and it fits excruciatingly well into the Secret History. It was actually kind of uncomfortable for me to read, because those were real terrorists and what they did was real. Not to mention the terrible future. But anyway, that's something different. Well-rounded characters and convincing dialogue have really never been Wilson's strong suit. He's got great ideas, interesting plots, and he moves the action along. Jack is definitely a great character, Wilson's best character, and this trilogy should have spent more time with him. Vinnie Donuts is a recurring character in the main series, but we didn't need all the detail about how he got established. He isn't interesting. We also didn't need to see so much of the terrorists either, IMO. I would rather have had more scenes between Jack and Bertels, Abe, Julio to show how his thinking evolved. I did think the subplot with Kristin was interesting, Jack never considered that while he is hiding his identity from her, she's also hiding from him. It's a decent book, it wraps up this story arc very well, but I'd have liked more Jack POV and less others.
P.S. I thought I was done with the whole Repairman Jack set, because Wilson says in the forward "Fear City will be the last Repairman Jack novel for a while...maybe forever". And it turns out "a while" is 5 years, because there's a new one out now in 2019.

Back to all reviews by this member
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details