Alan Jacobson
Alan Jacobson is an American author of mystery, suspense, thriller and action novels. Among his works are the FBI profiler Karen Vail series and the OPSIG Team Black series, as well as stand alone books and short stories.
His film reviews, photographs, short stories, and nonfiction articles have appeared in Variety, The Strand Magazine, Suspense Magazine, the New York Post, American Express travel insert, PBS, New York Gossip Girl, Sacramento Valley Chiropractic Association bulletin, and The Eighteen Eleven.
Early life
Jacobson grew up in the Queens, New York neighborhood of Rosedale. He attended elementary school at PS 138, then Junior High School 231, and Springfield Gardens High School, where he was ranked ninth in his graduating class.Jacobson has spoken openly of his volatile Junior High School experiences during the federal government's failed forced busing experiment in which students were bused from predominantly white neighborhoods into schools in black neighborhoods, and vice versa, in an attempt to force integration in the community. The student body was threatened on a daily basis. Coming from his elementary school, where two of his best friends were black, it was a rude awakening to the realities of ethnic tension that existed in Rosedale, Laurelton, Jamaica, and Springfield Gardens. Despite this, Jacobson chose not to take the attacks personally, and was able to overcome the volatile environment. He recalls attending a group counseling session in his freshman year of high school to address the racial problems that occurred at 231. When it was his turn to speak, he told of being threatened, beaten up, robbed, stuck with needles in the hallways, and held hostage in the school basement's bookroom. But he felt it was done by specific individuals and it was not fair to judge an entire group of people because of the actions of some.
Jacobson held a number of jobs as a teenager and young adult, including working part-time in his father's small business in New York City, tutoring English Second Language students at Queens College and Queensborough Community College, and busing tables and making deliveries for Woodro Deli in Cedarhurst, New York; the latter was to make enough money for his move to California in 1982 to attend chiropractic school.
Jacobson earned a bachelor's degree in English from Queens College and a Doctor of Chiropractic from Palmer College of Chiropractic West.
Early influences and career
During his junior high school years, Jacobson took English from teacher Louis Brill for two years. Jacobson attributes his love for English, and ultimately his pursuit of an English degree, to Brill. No Way Out, the fifth novel in the Karen Vail series, is dedicated to Brill. Jacobson and Brill reunited for the first time in nearly forty years at Thrillerfest in New York City in 2015.Jacobson obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Queens College of the City University of New York. There were two transformative learning experiences, one positive and one negative. Again, they involved teachers. On the positive side, Jacobson took two classes from Professor Richard Schotter, himself an accomplished playwright, where Jacobson learned the nuances and importance of writing effective dialogue, something that proved invaluable years later as a novelist. Jacobson has said that writing dialogue is deceivingly difficult because it takes skill to carve away the fat of real exchanges between people and yet make them seem perfectly natural.
On the negative side, his Short Story Workshop professor lambasted Jacobson for a story he had written involving two young soldiers from opposing sides of a conflict who became trapped in a cave. One of them had suffered an abdominal injury. The professor criticized Jacobson for writing about a character with an abdominal wound if he had not experienced one himself and thus did not know how painful they were.
Twenty years later, in the early stages of his writing career, Jacobson realized the professor had a point. If you were going to write about something like war and abdominal wounds, you needed to know what you were talking about. While writing his first published novel, False Accusations, his path crossed that of the head of the California Department of Justice. During a phone call with Jacobson, he requested a reference on one of Jacobson's employees who was applying to be a forensic scientist. Jacobson then asked the director a question about a novel he was writing involving the character of Ryan Chandler.
Jacobson's early draft of False Accusations referred to Chandler as a criminologist, but the director corrected him. Chandler was a criminalist. Many years before the CSI TV show, no one knew what a criminalist was unless you worked in forensics. But once the difference was explained to him, Jacobson realized he had homework to do to avoid making similar errors. That episode influenced his approach to his fiction. If an FBI agent reached for a Glock, it had better be the right caliber and model because Jacobson does have law enforcement officers who read his novels and they live the reality.
He began his career as a Doctor of Chiropractic. He was then appointed to the position of Qualified Medical Evaluator by the State of California, and served as an expert witness within the justice system. Due to an injury Jacobson was forced to leave the medical field.
Jacobson is known for his depth of research with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, especially in his work with retired FBI agent Mark Safarik, with whom he co-authored an e-book titled "Staying Safe."
Post-graduate work
Although he loved writing, he never intended to do it professionally. After getting his Bachelor of Arts in English from Queens College in New York, Jacobson moved to California to get his doctor of chiropractic degree from Palmer College of Chiropractic-West in California. He practiced for nearly nine years but his career was cut short when an injury to his wrists forced him to take an administrative role. He ultimately sold his practice and returned to writing, scoring his first bestseller, False Accusations, five years later.Work with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit
While auditing a course on blood spatter pattern analysis at the California Department of Justice's Criminalistics Institute, Jacobson met FBI special agent Mark Safarik. Safarik was awaiting a promotion to the behavioral analysis unit at the time. Jacobson and Safarik struck up a conversation and became friends. Safarik was himself fascinated by serial killers and profiling concepts and Jacobson was excited to learn as much as he could. In the subsequent months, after Safarik was promoted to Quantico, he invited Jacobson out to visit and tour the FBI Academy and profiling unit.It was the first of many visits Jacobson would make to the FBI Academy and profiling unit spanning over a decade. Shortly after creating the character of Karen Vail and writing the first 75 pages of The 7th Victim, Jacobson met Safarik's partner, Supervisory Special Agent Mary Ellen O'Toole, who gave him an understanding of what it was like being a female profiler in a male-dominated unit. Jacobson used this information and experience to fill out Vail's background and tenacity. He continues to work with both Safarik and O'Toole for his Karen Vail series. Spectrum is dedicated to O'Toole and Inmate 1577 to Safarik.
Professional influences
Jacobson has mentioned authors Steve Martini, David Morrell, Andy McNab, Nelson DeMille, Allan Folsom, Michael Connelly, Michael Crichton, Robert Ludlum, Dennis Lehane, and O. Henry as influences. He has stated that he doesn't like to name specific authors as he will forget to mention some.Jacobson's relates a story regarding Steve Martini. While an aspiring writer, Jacobson was addicted to Steve Martini novels. When Martini did a book signing at Barnes & Noble, Jacobson attended. While Martini was signing the hardcover to him, Jacobson asked him for advice on getting published. About ten years later, while at the ThrillerFest writers conference in New York City, Jacobson felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see his publisher, Roger Cooper of Vanguard Press, standing with Martini. Cooper introduced the two men and Jacobson mentioned that they had met many years earlier at a signing. Weeks later, he asked if Martini would read his new manuscript, Crush. Martini loved the book and wrote a testimonial blurb for it, which appeared on the Crush hardcover jacket. The following year at ThrillerFest, Jacobson was standing at the elevators when he again felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Steve Martini standing there with a copy of Crush. He asked Jacobson to autograph it for him. He felt like he had come full circle as a writer.
Nelson DeMille was also an early influence. Even though Jacobson had created Karen Vail a couple of years before DeMille's John Corey character debuted in Plum Island, Vail was very similar in demeanor to Corey. DeMille agreed. Of Vail's first novel, The 7th Victim, DeMille wrote, "Alan Jacobson is a hell of a writer, and his lead character, Karen Vail, is a hell of a lady: tough, smart, funny, and very believable…This reads like a Nelson DeMille book. And I should know".