Book Review: Hosts

Hosts (A Repairman Jack Novel), by F. Paul Wilson

Published by Tor Fiction in 2001, ISBN 978-0-8125-6166-1

I recieved Hosts from IJustFinished.com, a new-ish book review website/community.  And boy was I glad to get this book! I'm a fan of the series, and this is one of the books I had skipped because the blurb didn't make the story sound that interesting.  Boy was I wrong!

Hosts is the fifth Repairman Jack novel, out of about twelve so far. I have to say at the beginning: I'm a Repairman Jack fan. Oddly, though, Hosts is one of the 2 or 3 books in the series that I had skipped over or missed for some reason.  It's kind of nice going back, and catching up - filling in the blanks. I intend to find the other books in the series that I've missed.

Each of the Repairman Jack novels can be read without having read any others, but it is a series, and helps immensely if you've read all the preceding books. Repairman Jack is the "everyman", generic looking, average height, average weight, doesn't stand out in a crowd. Jack doesn't fix your appliances though; he fixes your ...problems. Someone trying to blackmail you? Call Repairman Jack. Someone stalking you? Call Repairman Jack. Jack lives off the radar, doesn't pay his taxes, and often uses illegal means to accomplish the job. He's not an ex-SEAL, not a government operative - he's just Jack. But he won't work for the bad guys. Jack is also becoming more and more involved (as the series progresses) with a certain paranormal war, though he doesn't want to and doesn't understand why he has be to be involved.

In Hosts, after stopping a killer on a New York subway train, Jack encounters his long lost sister and a reporter that wants to expose Jack as the hero of the subway train massacre. Through an odd cult, Jack's sister is becoming involved in that paranormal war I mentioned, though she doesn't know it - and Jack comes to her rescue.

I knew, indirectly, how this book would end because it's plot points are mentioned in future novels in the series - but finding out how it happens was definitely worth going back and reading.

The Repairman Jack novels defy categorization - they contain elements of Action/Adventure, Mystery, Conspiracy, Suspense, a litle Paranormal, and maybe some Horror thrown in. If you like any of those types of stories, try out Repairman Jack.

The author, F. Paul Wilson, has a website at Repairmanjack.com.

I usually don't give "star" ratings for books, I just tell if I liked the book or not - but IJustFinished.com requires a star rating, so I gave Hosts 4 out of 5 stars.