F. Paul Wilson, Fatal Error, Gauntlet Publications, 2010, 350 pp., $60.00.

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F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack novel, Fatal Error, brims with creeping horror and dread. Like passengers in a roller coaster slowly but inexorably chugging to the tallest peak of a long ride, we experience the mounting tension that clutches at our guts. Cringing, we await the sudden and inevitable heart-thumping plunge we realize is coming but are powerless to avoid. With only a single narrative (The Dark at the End) remaining between us and the ultimate chaos of Nightworld, we know that the terror of the Change will soon engulf Jack and his world...and the loved ones he has vowed to protect.

The story begins prosaically — yet disgustingly — enough as computer programmer Munir Habib exposes himself one cold winter morning at Fifth Avenue and Central Park in New York City. He proceeds to urinate in front of the streaming crowds of people and drivers. What would drive such a seemingly quiet and unassuming man to such a socially vile act? Oddly enough, his motivation is similar to Jack’s: to save his wife and son from torture and death.

Even more coincidentally — or perhaps not? — the racist maniac who pushes Munir to unspeakable limits derives boundless joy from the physical and emotional agony he inflicts on innocent others in much the same way that the Adversary — Rasalom — does on those whose existences he disrupts or destroys without reservation or regret.

Given the turmoil in his own life, Jack is understandably reluctant to become involved in the tribulations of a stranger who would seemingly be better off utilizing the resources of the police in solving his problem. After all, Jack is still concerned for the safety of his childhood friend, “Weezy,” a.k.a., Louise Connell (Myers, to the Septimus Order which is still searching for her). His girlfriend, Gia, and her daughter, Vicky, remain top priorities, especially given Gia’s vision that the world ends in a few short months. Then there is Veilleur (Glaeken), one time champion of the Ally, now an old man reduced to hiding from the enemy he once conquered; the “Lady” whose death would herald the triumph of the Otherness; Eddie, Weezy’s naive brother whose impetuous desire to help his sister threatens not only her life but his own; Jack’s weapon supplier and old friend, Abe; Dawn Pickering, a young woman Jack pledged to protect, pawn in the game between the Ally and the Otherness and mother to a monstrosity; and, well, the entire human race.

In computer lingo, a “fatal error” is a mistake or flaw in a program or operating system from which there is no recovery. In Fatal Error, the potential destruction of the Internet figures prominently in the machinations of Rasalom — Mr. Osala — and those like the Kickers and the Septimus Order who unwittingly or not act on his behalf. The Internet they plot to take down is the sustaining force behind the Lady, the only entity (person?) holding the enemy at bay. Kill the one, Rasalom believes, and he kills the other.