Jack: Secret Histories

Book 0: Repairman Jack

by F. Paul Wilson

Genres: YA Mysteries & Thrillers; YA Paranormal

Synopsis

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.



At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Release date: May 27, 2008

Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Print pages: 304

Sample

From Jack: Secret Histories

Weezy laid the object on the ground between them and began to examine it.

Jack knelt opposite her. "What do you think it is?"

She shook her head, looking as baffled as he felt. "I don't know. Some kind of stone—onyx, maybe? It's got no writing on it, but I get this feeling it's . . . old." She looked up at him. "Know what I mean?"

Jack couldn't say why, but he knew exactly what she meant.

"Yeah. Very old."

"And where there's one there's probably others." Her eyes were wide with wonder and excitement. "Help me, Jack?"

"Try and stop me."

He wanted one of those cubes for himself.

So they started digging—not easy in the wet sand. But they kept coming up empty. Frustration was beginning to nibble at Jack when his fingertips scraped against a hard surface.

"Got something!"

He dug his fingers down on each side of whatever it was and pulled it up.

And found himself looking into the empty eye sockets of a rotting human head.

He stared in mute, open-mouthed, grossed-out shock. Beside him, Weezy screamed.