Repairman Jack

If you've never read a Repairman Jack novel, this is the place to begin. It's 1990. A twenty-one-year-old named Jack has dropped out of college, leaving his old life behind to build a new one in New York City. Manhattan's rough edges are jagged enough to shred any unwary newcomer, but perhaps not one who is determined to stay off the grid, at any cost, in the busiest metropolis on earth. And to do so, he'll have to take jobs of a less than legal nature.

Much to the chagrin of his girlfriend, Gia, Repairman Jack doesn't deal with electronic appliances. He fixes situations for people, often putting himself in deadly danger. His latest project is recovering a stolen necklace, which carries with it an ancient curse that may unleash a horde of Bengali demons. Jack is used to danger, but this time Gia's daughter Vicky is threatened. Can Jack overcome the curse of the yellow necklace and bring Vicky safely back home?

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.

Can you imagine a new chemical compound, a nonaddictive designer drug that heightens your assertiveness, opens the door to your primal self, giving you an edge wherever you compete, whether on the street or the football field, in a classroom or a boardroom? Wouldn’t you be tempted to try it...just once? What happens if it releases uncontrollable rage and makes you a killer?

Repairman Jack has been tearing up the urban adventure scene ever since he was introduced in the New York Times best seller, The Tomb. Jack has no last name, no social security number, and no qualms when it comes to getting the job done - even if it means putting himself in serious danger. Hosts starts with a bang when Jack has to stop a psychotic's shooting rampage on a subway car - but there are witnesses, and Jack’s essential anonymity is threatened.

Repairman Jack doesn’t believe a house can be haunted. But he’s about to change that tune… In the borough of Queens, just across the river from Manhattan, two 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 learns that his father is in a coma after a car accident in Florida. They’ve been on the outs, but this is his dad, so he heads south to Gateways, a retirement community on the Everglades. The woman Semelee, who has strange talents and lives in an isolated area of the Everglades with a group of misshapen men, feels his presence. She senses that he’s “special,” like her. To protect his father from becoming the next fatality at Gateways, there are questions Jack must answer, secrets he must uncover.

Repairman Jack is back! Jack can fix any problem, natural or supernatural, for a price. Now, in his next gripping adventure, he takes on two cases at once. The first involves a nun being blackmailed. What’s in those photos, she won’t say, but with her meager savings just about exhausted, she hires Jack to help her. The second: an elderly woman needs Jack to find her missing son. Jack must infiltrate the inner reaches of the Dormentalist Church, a secretive, globe-spanning cult whose members include some of the biggest and most powerful names in entertainment, sports, and politics.

The ninth Repairman Jack novel begins with a tragedy that throws Jack together with his brother Tom, a judge from Philadelphia. They've never been close and Jack, the career criminal, soon finds that he adheres to a higher ethical standard than his brother the judge. Determined to get to know his brother better, Tom convinces Jack to go on a wild treasure hunt together. Armed only with a map pointing the way to a desolate wreck off the coast of Bermuda, the brothers come across something much stranger, and much more dangerous than mere treasure.

It starts off so simply: Jack is hanging out in Julio's bar when a regular named Timmy asks him for help. His teenage niece has been missing since this morning; the police say it’s too early to worry, but Timmy knows something bad has happened. Jack says he'll put the word out on the street.This innocent request triggers a chain of seemingly coincidental events that lead Jack into the darkest days of his life.Jack is desperate...and the last thing you want to do is make Jack desperate. That's when things begin to blow up and people begin to die.

It starts off simply enough. (Doesn't it always?) Jack has been on hiatus since the tragic events in Harbingers. With his beloved Gia's encouragement he dips his toe back into the fix-it pool.Christy Pickering's 18-year-old daughter is dating Jerry Bethlehem, a man twice her age. Christy sensed something shady and sinister about him, so she hired a private investigator to look into his past. But the PI isn't returning her calls. Will Jack find out why?

Jack is hired to find a legendary Japanese sword, a katana stolen from the Hiroshima Peace Museum and brought to New York City. Central characters include the members of a weird Japanese cult, a young Japanese businessman (who is the brother of a character killed in Legacies) and his three Yakuza bodyguards, plus Hank Thompson, the Kicker cult leader from Bloodline. The cult, the businessman, the Yakuza, and the Kickers are looking for the sword as well.

On September 11, 2001, a man drifts in a boat off lower Manhattan as the twin towers burn. He removes a small box from his pocket and presses a button. As he waits for the south tower to collapse, he thinks: The vast majority will blame the collapse on the crazy Arabs who hijacked the planes and the Islamic extremists who funded them - the obvious choice. A few will notice inconsistencies and point fingers elsewhere, blaming the government or Big Oil or some other powerful but faceless entity. No one - absolutely no one - will guess the truth behind the who and why of this day.

Munir Habib’s life has become a nightmare. His tormentor has warned Munir not to report the kidnapping of his family, or they will pay a terrible price. But a friend realizes something is terribly wrong and tells Munir he doesn’t have to go to the cops. There’s a guy who fixes situations like this - Repairman Jack. Jack is backed into helping Munir despite his ongoing involvement in the cosmic shadow war between the Ally and the Otherness. Or perhaps because of it.

Bound by his promise to the dying former immortal, Glaeken, Jack has refrained from making any direct moves against his arch-enemy, Rasalom. But things have changed, so there’s nothing holding Jack in check any longer. Jack is healing at an accelerated rate - much like Glaeken did when he was immortal. This must mean that Glaeken’s time is almost up, and when he dies, Jack will take his place. Rasalom continues to plot against the Lady.

It’s late December between Ground Zero and Fatal Error, a winter of discontent for Jack who’s perhaps spending too much time hanging at Julio’s. An old contact, Edward Burkes, convinces him to take on a missing-person fix. As usual, nothing is as it seems, and the missing person isn’t exactly a person. In fact, it’s like nothing anyone has ever seen. And in the middle of all this, the mysterious Madame de Medici hires him to safeguard a valuable object. Simple, right? Not even close. Yep, Jack is back and, as usual, weird trouble is on his heels.