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A review by zade
The Haunted Air by F. Paul Wilson
3.0
Wilson's Repairman Jack novels present me with quite a dilemma. I don't at all care for supernatural or horror stories, but I really like Jack. I came into the series backwards, first reading the recently written prequels describing Jack's early days in NYC. These novels I enjoyed a lot. They are almost entirely free of supernatural elements and really emphasize Jack's moral code and his particular abhorrence for anyone who hurts children. As a fan of Andrew Vachss (both his fiction and his real work), I have a soft spot for tales in which child abusers, rapists, and traffickers get their comeuppance since they so rarely do in real life. The prequels really suit this taste, as does the second book in the series, Legacies. Legacies also has the benefit of having little to no supernatural element, just a bit of fringe science.
The Haunted Air is the 6th entry in the series and finds Jack faced with impending fatherhood and potentially the end of his fix-it career. One of his final jobs involves helping a pair of fake psychics find out which of their competitors is trying to run them out of business or kill them. Of course, it's never that simple as it turns out their house really does seem to be haunted by the ghost of a murdered child. Thus, here we find both the horror/supernatural element for which Wilson is famous and the morality of hunting down those who hurt children. While the investigative element of the story did balance somewhat the supernatural element, it wasn't enough to make the book truly enjoyable for me. The story was written well and the characters, especially the Kaplan brothers, were engaging. I found the heavy-handed use of "bad things are coming, the world as you know it will end in a couple of years due to some supernatural catastrophe" ethos distracting. Without it, the story could have been pretty interesting, even with the ghost, but by the end of the book, I was pretty sure I don't want to read any more of the series. If evil is going to take over the world, I'd rather enjoy something positive in the meantime.
For fans of horror and supernatural stories, this would likely be a fine choice. My 3-star rating has more to do with my personal taste than with Wilson's talent. And I'm grateful to him for infusing his stories with a moral core that seems to be lacking in much of contemporary horror fiction.
The Haunted Air is the 6th entry in the series and finds Jack faced with impending fatherhood and potentially the end of his fix-it career. One of his final jobs involves helping a pair of fake psychics find out which of their competitors is trying to run them out of business or kill them. Of course, it's never that simple as it turns out their house really does seem to be haunted by the ghost of a murdered child. Thus, here we find both the horror/supernatural element for which Wilson is famous and the morality of hunting down those who hurt children. While the investigative element of the story did balance somewhat the supernatural element, it wasn't enough to make the book truly enjoyable for me. The story was written well and the characters, especially the Kaplan brothers, were engaging. I found the heavy-handed use of "bad things are coming, the world as you know it will end in a couple of years due to some supernatural catastrophe" ethos distracting. Without it, the story could have been pretty interesting, even with the ghost, but by the end of the book, I was pretty sure I don't want to read any more of the series. If evil is going to take over the world, I'd rather enjoy something positive in the meantime.
For fans of horror and supernatural stories, this would likely be a fine choice. My 3-star rating has more to do with my personal taste than with Wilson's talent. And I'm grateful to him for infusing his stories with a moral core that seems to be lacking in much of contemporary horror fiction.