Cold City

September 24, 2012
In Wilson’s lively first in a projected trilogy of prequels to his Repairman Jack saga (Nightworld, etc.), Jack, newly arrived in Manhattan, begins honing the skills that will eventually make him a formidable urban mercenary who operates off the grid. Jack’s talent for finding trouble is already well developed, as becomes clear when his job smuggling cigarettes runs him afoul of Arab jihadists, the mob, and a ring of sex slavers. Wilson expertly evokes Manhattan in all its gritty glory in the early ’90s and introduces series regulars Abe Grossman, Jack’s gunrunner and surrogate father, and Julio, the hard-working barkeep at Jack’s preferred watering hole, the Spot. Though preachy in spots and devoid of the supernatural subtext that invigorates the later novels, this valentine to Jack’s legion of fans still packs a wallop that whets the appetite for his next early adventure. Agent, Al Zuckerman, Writers House.