Cold City: A Repairman Jack Novel

CUSTOMER REVIEW



"Cold City" is the first of 3 'prequels' to the RJ series that will fill in the gaps between the teen-aged Jack described in the "Secret History" YA trilogy (published concomitantly with the last few RJ novels), and the fully formed Repairman Jack who we first meet in "The Tomb" (originally published in 1984).

FPW consistently avowed throughout the late 2000s that he was not going to beat Jack to death by writing an unlimited number of RJ novels and that he was going to end the critically and, no doubt, financially successful series after (what turned out to be) 15 novels, merging it the Adversary Cycle ending with Nightworld. FPW was adamant that there would be no more "Secret History of the World" novels set after the end of the (wonderfully revised in 2012) Nightworld.

But fans (and no doubt his publishers) clamored for more, and so FPW acceded to the demand, while still keeping his promise that there would be nothing more of the "Secret History of the World" after Nightworld, by pledging to write a trilogy that will show us Jack's "missing" years. In Cold City we are intoduced to a 21 year old Jack, new to NYC, basically friendless, on his own, and off the grid. We see his first encounters with stalwarts-to-be Julio (he actually can speak perfect, unaccented English), Abe (he apparently always had a thing for Entennmann's and a weight problem) and some perhaps unexpected others. Jack has his first experience with personal firearms, and is involved in some serious violence along the way as he becomes a cigarette smuggler, narrowly misses the assassination of Meyer Kahane, and tangles with Muslim jihadist sex slavers and the Mafia, which are all somehow related. What fun!

Jack is preternaturally bright and resourceful for a 21 year old from a hick town in New Jersey, and manages to get himself into and out of some pretty hairy situations. As a 21 year old, Jack seems a little less able to handle rough situations without resorting to extreme mayhem than when he is fully grown, but this simply adds to the realism of the development of character that long-time fans know will come to eschew violence for more subtle fixes except when absolutely necessary as an adult.

There is almost none of the Adversary/Otherness cosmic drama here, although some of the baddies are members of the Septimus Order and their goal of promoting chaos is mentioned several times, and there are a few brief references to "the One", but no further description or context for the the latter is given. There is some horrific human violence, much of it perpetrated by Jack entering one of his "black fogs" of anger that will become better explained in later novels. But mostly this is just great, FPW writing, filling us in on the parts of the early Jack that we will come to love and be addicted to in later novels. My hat is off to FPW, for another splendid RJ adventure that is certain to become a best-seller for already addicted RJ fans. I should add that this also a great place to start, probably the very best, even if you have never read any of the subsequent novels, and especially if you are a fan of good versus evil, moral ambiguity, guns, libertarian philosophy, and fat old Jewish gunsellers with a penchant for bagels and lox and Entennmann's pastry.

Very Highly Recommended.

J.M. Tepper