Rating: 
(2 reviews)
Author: F. Paul Wilson
Publisher: Tor Teen
Product Description
Ever come across a situation that simply wasn’t right—where someone was getting the dirty end of the stick and you wished you could make things right but didn’t know how? Fourteen-year-old Jack knows how. Or rather he’s learning how. He’s discovering that he has a knack for fixing things. Not bikes or toys or appliances—situations….
It all starts when Jack and his best friends, Weezy and Eddie, discover a rotting corpse—the victim of ritual murder—in the fabled New Jersey Pine Barrens. Beside the body is an ancient artifact carved with strange designs. What is its secret? What is the secret of the corpse? What other mysteries hide in the dark, timeless Pine Barrens? And who doesn’t want them revealed?
Jack’s town, the surrounding Barrens, his friends, even Jack himself…they all have…Secret Histories.
2 Comments
In 1983 New Jersey, teenager Jack enjoys playing Atari games with his friends, siblings Eddie and Weezy; his other pastime is riding his bike. Jack prefers to stay away from his home as his parents are pests, his older sister demanding and his older brother an abusive jerk.
Jack and his two buddies are biking in the Pine Barrens when they find an ancient burial site. Unable to resist they search for hidden treasure only to find a more modern but rotted corpse and an odd looking black box with arcane symbols etched on it. Neither Weezy nor Eddie can open it; only Jack can. They soon learn the victim was a member of the elite Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order. Not long afterward other members are murdered. Jack investigates the enigmatic box and the serial killings of the Order.
Repairman Jack teenage sleuth is an enjoyable whodunit as fans obtain a look at the strange hero’s early life in suburbia. The story line starts a bit slow especially for those who know Jack as F. Paul Wilson methodically sets time and place more so for older followers of the series. Once we know Jack, the plot takes off as he makes inquiries that places him in jeopardy, but sets him on his future life’s path. JACK: SECRET HISTORIES is a wonderful refreshingly different entry that targets young adults, but series readers will relish young Jack in action.
Harriet Klausner
Some minor SPOILERS…
Repairman Jack, today, is a paranoid urban mercenary who makes his living “fixing” situations. He prefers to live his life off the government grid, and because he’s so average looking, he easily blends into the background. But when the fit’s about to hit the shan - and the coppers and the government and the usual agencies just won’t cut it - then you call on Repairman Jack. For my money, Jack is about the coolest cat there is, the best guy to count on when the devil’s at your doorstep. There are eleven full-length eerie thrillers written about him (not counting NIGHT WORLD), as well as a handful of short stories, and if you haven’t clued in to him yet, I suggest strongly that you do so. Repairman Jack is righteous!
But this isn’t about Jack as he is right now. This is about when he was a kid, just before his path veered into weirdness. JACK: SECRET HISTORIES is author F. Paul Wilson’s first foray into Young Adult fiction and also his attempt to flesh out Jack’s blank slate of a past. It is the first in a new series. If you’re curious about what Jack was like when he was a kid, or if you’ve wondered what made him the way he is today…well, get ready, F. Paul Wilson is about to start laying it out for you.
So this is back when Jack was 14 years old, a normal kid living in tiny, lame-o Johnson, New Jersey. But today is when his life starts to get odd. He and two of his friends, Eddie and Eddie’s older and offbeat sister Louise (but call her “Weezy”), are traipsing about the foreboding Jersey Pine Barrens, mostly because Weezy wants to show them a stretch of burial mounds. Caught in a downpour, they end up unearthing a black cube carved with mysterious designs. And a corpse.
The kids actually think it’s all pretty neat. But that changes. The corpse, it turns out, was done in thru a hideous ritual two years ago. Jack begins to get nervous when three deaths soon follow the discovery of the body. Then the nagging questions crop up. Why is it that only Jack seems to be able to open the box? And what has that secretive Lodge got to do with everything? What was that fleeting shape they glimpsed in the woods? Of course it can’t be the mythical Jersey Devil, could it? Jack has been gently scoffing at Weezy’s fervent assertions that the world hides a secret history, and that the enigmatic cube is linked to it. But now…
Although F. Paul Wilson tones it down to fit his teen audience, JACK: SECRET HISTORIES still comes with thrills and intensity. As usual Wilson sets a brisk pace. In no time at all I was caught up in young Jack’s exploits. And, yes, it seems like Jack gets to do his very first fixes in this book. Note that while Jack serves up several dishes of comeuppance to the bad guys, his inspired retaliations against his bullying older brother are almost as riveting. Or as Weezy says to Jack, after Jack had just orchestrated a clever getaway from their mysterious pursuers: “You’re scary, you know that? What kind of mind thinks up something like that?”
F. Paul Wilson re-introduces Jack’s sister Kate, brother Tom, and his dad. We meet for the first time Jack’s mother and Eddy and Weezy (whom Jack is half-crushing on). There’s also Jack’s alcoholic friend, Steve, who I thought was a boring character, even if his story arc does figure into how Jack stumps a murderer. It’s intriguing (and a bit worrying), trying to anticipate how these childhood friends will impact Jack’s future; we do know that, so far, they haven’t been in any of the Repairman Jack novels.
I hesitate to label SECRET HISTORIES a spooky read. There are supernatural/sci-fi elements here, but nothing that frightening or chilling. Longtime readers are all too aware of Jack’s eventual destiny as the world’s champion against a malevolent cosmic entity, and that, in the Repairman Jack series, F. Paul Wilson is drawing closer and closer to that confrontation. It seems that the Ally and the Adversary have always touched Jack’s life. Even in this book, their presence is felt, if at a more remote distance. There’s even an old lady and a dog (a constant thorny theme in Jack’s life).
The central story itself is fine and engrossing enough, but I really got into the minutiae of Jack’s childhood. No surprise that he was always overfond of pulp adventures (the Shadow, the Spider, etc.). But I got a kick out of reading about his job at the Used Goods store, where he finds a certain book which would serve him well in his future career as vigilante for hire. In other books I’ve read of Kate and Tom and Jack’s dad interacting with the adult Jack, so it’s interesting to note how different and how similar the relationships are when Jack was so much younger. Jack learns some life lessons here, which no doubt had a hand in shaping the man he’ll become. Even in this book, one can track Jack’s evolution from innocent, regular teen into someone who begins to sense that there are things out there beyond the norm, that there really might be a secret history to the world. Young Jack wouldn’t mind snooping around.