Repairman Jack Returns in "By the Sword"

Repairman Jack is seriously paranoiad, lives well off the books, and adheres to a code of honor which gets him into trouble. He's an undercover urban samurai, bound by his code and his giri, despite his own reluctance. Jack repairs situations where the police can't be called in, especially those in which violence is involved.

Wilson reveals that the Repairman Jack saga is winding down with the last several books of the series more interconnected than before. Although important to the continuing story, I still think it will stand alone well and will compel you to read subsequent books. And this from a guy who hates book series and TV series with running storylines.

In this book, Jack is going after a fabled katana, a sword of the samurai, fashioned partially from a meteorite, the meteoritic part of which survived the direct blast of the Hiroshima bomb in 1945. Jack's client wants the sword and he agrees to find it. But he also has to rescue a pregnant girl who is in the hands of the enemy because her child is important to the enemy.

And in this case, there is an assortment of enemies, including the surviving members of a bizarre Japanese cult who've established themselves in New York, a group of American cultists of a different type, and armed Yakuza thugs in the employ of a Japanese business magnate.

Wilson provides a helpful but not overely detailed guide at the back of the book listing where his books and short stories, even several not remotely related to the series, fit in his countdown to Armageddon. Armageddon is covered in Nightworld, the book that brings together the already completed Adversary Cycle as well as the Repairman Jack novels, nearing completion. Wilson notes that Nightworld will also be extensively rewritten, no doubt to incorporate some of the developments in the Repairman Jack series.

I know, it's confusing.

I've read a few of the handful Adversary books and have personally found Repairman Jack much more appealing. That must be true of Wilson, too, because he keeps writing the Repairman Jack books.

I must add I did really enjoy The Keep, which was the common origin for both series. (You'll like it. A super-being kills a bunch of SS thugs in a keep in Romania. Hard to go wrong with a book that kills off Nazis.)

Excellent, fast reading. I was pulled through it in just a few days. It'll make you want to pick up the other books in the series.