Publishers Weekly
As in his last Repairman Jack novel, The Haunted Air (2002), Wilson deftly contrasts the self-imposed isolation of his vigilante hero with the forced exile of society's outcasts. When he learns that his estranged father is in a coma after a car accident, Jack travels to Florida, where his father has been living in a retirement community, Gateways South, which encroaches a bit further into the Everglades than the brochures would have you think. Jack soon has another run-in with what he calls "the Otherness," a Lovecraftian evil that here pervades a lagoon and the community of mutated rednecks surrounding it. Wilson is unsurpassed in depicting his characters' feelings of alienation as they attempt to comprehend the cosmic forces that have misshapen their lives. Particularly vivid is Semelee, an albino woman-child who achieves a certain degree of domination over her mostly male brethren by virtue (or lack thereof) of her sexuality. Jack's reconciliation with his father, along with the discovery that his father is also no stranger to the finer points of violence, could have been maudlin in the hands of a lesser writer, but Wilson provides just enough conflict between the two to allow their newfound love for each other to be convincing. This one will appeal to horror aficionados and to fans of Carl Hiassen and James Lee Burke. (Nov. 12) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
When Jack receives the news that his father is in a coma as a result of an accident, he travels to Florida to investigate the circumstances and discovers a young woman named Semelee with unusual powers. The author of The Keep adds a new story to his "Repairman Jack" series (The Tomb, The Haunted Air, and others) with this tale of eerie doings in the Everglades. Atmospherically taut and well paced, this novel belongs in most horror collections. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Seventh in the Repairman Jack series (The Haunted Air, 2002, etc.), which keeps expanding its supernatural background while shrinking all into an amoebic typeface. The series began and supposedly takes place in the mid- to late-'80s, while we have references to 9/11, Homeland Security, and recent songs. Although Jack fights The Otherness, an evil entity, throughout the various installments, he's guided (blindly) by a benign Anti-Otherness entity, which apparently checks the evil entity's each bad intent by moving Jack about to repair cracks in humankind. Wilson deepens Jack's character by having Jack's pregnant girlfriend Gia beg him to join the human race and stop living between the cracks-Jack has no Social Security number, has never filed a 1040 or paid a cent in taxes, is never photographed or fingerprinted, avoids credit cards, etc. And Gia has inner warnings that The Otherness wants their baby. (Jack, by the way, sounds like Arnold-who fought The Entity in End of Days-and has Schwarzenegger's brand of humor.) Wilson hairpins away from the Gia problem by having Jack fly off to Florida to attend his comatose dad, who's been in a car accident outside his seniors' community, Gateways South. An accident devised by The Otherness? Jack wonders. Meanwhile, in the Everglades, white-headed young Semelee, a girl with a two-headed snapping turtle who belongs to a gang of misshapen beggars, has a talent that senses Jack's approach by plane. At the hospital he meets Anya Mundy, Dad's Ruth Gordon-ish neighbor, who tells Jack there's more to his father than he ever dreamed. Seniors are dying, rather unnaturally, by spider, bird, and snake. As sacrifices? Jack must now learn Dad's secrets to protecthim. What are these weird lights floating up from the Everglades? At last he meets The Otherness, Rasalom, who lets Jack live but promises great future pain. Repairman Jack, the adaptation of The Tomb (1984), is now in pre-production-though not with Arnold.
