Young Repairman Jack

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.

When his five-year-old neighbor goes missing, Jack can't help feeling responsible. He should have taken Cody home when he found him riding his bicycle near the Pine Barrens. And then a lost man wanders out of the woods after being chased all night by . . . something. Jack knows, better than anyone that the Barrens are dangerous-a true wilderness filled with people, creatures, and objects lost from sight and memory. Like the ancient, fifteen-foot-tall stone pyramid he, Weezy, and Eddie discover. Jack thinks it might have been a cage of some sort, but for what kind of animal, he can't say. Eddie jokes that it could have been used for the Jersey Devil. Jack doesn't believe in that old folk tale, but something is roaming the Pines. Could it have Cody? And what about the strange circus that set up outside town? Could they be involved? So many possibilities, so little time . . .

Everyone loves senior Carson Toliver, the captain and quarterback of the football team, heartthrob of South Burlington County Regional High-especially the girls. Even Jack's best friend Weezy has a crush on him. And unlike most of the popular kids at school, he's not stuck up. Jack even sees him defending a piney kid who is being bullied in the hall. Which is why Jack is so surprised when Weezy tells him that Carson took her on a date and attacked her. Jack tries to convince her to report Carson, but Weezy would rather just forget it ever happened. She begs him not to tell anyone, and Jack reluctantly agrees. But then Carson starts telling his own version of what happened that night and suddenly everyone is calling her "Easy Weezy." Jack's concern turns to rage. Carson needs to be taught a lesson. With the help of the pineys-reclusive inhabitants of the mysterious Jersey Pine Barrens who have secrets of their own-Jack finds a way to exact secret vengeance . . . In F. Paul Wilson's third young adult novel, the teenage Jack demonstrates the skills that will serve him later in life as the urban mercenary known as Repairman Jack.