(pb; 2008: first book in the
Young Repairman Jack trilogy, 2008-2010)
From the back cover
“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 you 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 a 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.”
Review
Set in 1983 (Return of the Jedi is in its first theatrical run), Histories is a fun, well-written, era-specific and humor-laced paranormal-flirtatious mystery surrounding the New Jersey Pine Barrens and Jack’s usually quiet hometown. When he and his friends discover a strange box—which leads to the discovery of a corpse—and other secrets, many of them held by those close to Jack, Weezy and Eddie.
Histories might
run a bit long for genre-familiar and/or older readers (I’m part of that group),
but considering it was written for younger readers (according to Amazon, grades
6—9) and that it has two direct sequels (and numerous older-Jack sequels) its
length might be appropriate. Anyhow, it’s a good, hints-at-Jack’s-powers-and-acumen
prequel to other Repairman Jack books, unnecessary but worth reading if you’re into this type
of book, a fan of Wilson and/or his Repairman Jack works, and don’t mind an
ending that explicitly teases further character interactions and mysteries
connected to Histories’s events. Followed by Jack: Secret Circles.
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