As the first female agent ever to be promoted into the FBI’s elite
Behavioral Analysis Unit, Special Agent Karen Vail has lots to offer
— and lots to prove. In Alan Jacobson‘s latest thriller,
The Seventh Victim, Vail puts her profiling skills to the test
while tracking the Dead Eyes killer, who despises what he calls
“women-slut-whores,” so he poses as an FBI agent going door-to-door
(using the deliberately ironic pseudonym “Agent Cox”) to ingratiate his
way into women’s homes before slaying them: “Like a master painter
inscribing his name at the bottom of a canvas, he brought back the
knife and drove it through Melanie Hoffman’s left eye socket,” writes
Jacobson, who will discuss his work at Clayton Books (5433D
Clayton Rd., Clayton) on December 2.
When he arrived in Northern California to attend chiropractic school
at age 21, Jacobson probably never could have guessed that some twenty
years hence he would be the author of national bestsellers featuring
graphic descriptions of violence. (Another sample: “The deep burn of a
gunshot wound was instantly upon her, and a wide bloody circle spread
through the nylon fibers of the stretch fabric of her tan pants.”) But
looking back, he finds himself “fascinated by how and why things happen
— and how chance meetings and random occurrences, years later,
can have an enormous impact.” For example, “when I was attending junior
high school in New York, I was part of a ‘forced integration’
experiment in which teens from one ethnicity were bused into schools in
predominantly other ethnic neighborhoods. It was a volatile situation.
Police cars were often parked out front. There were riots, hallway
incidents, threats, and beatings. Violence was, it seemed, a daily
occurrence. So my junior high experience was not filled with youthful
exuberance” but with some of the emotions and experiences now channeled
into Jacobson’s fiction. Also during those years, he had an excellent
English teacher. “Had I not been bused to that school, I never would
have had Mr. Brill as my teacher. The busing experiment failed
miserably. But without it, it’s possible I never would’ve discovered my
love for English.” While he was working as a chiropractor, a chance
telephone conversation with a US Department of Justice criminalist
piqued Jacobson’s curiosity. Soon he was learning blood-spatter-pattern
analysis, meeting FBI agents — and writing. “One thing is
certain: When I look back to that phone call back in 1994 … it led to
this.”
Of all his novels — the others are 2000’s False
Accusations and 2002’s The Hunted — “I think it’s fair
to say I’m most proud of this one. I won’t come out and say it’s my
favorite, because, like children, my books each have their special
characteristics. But … Hollywood has already made its choice: The
film rights to The 7th Victim have been sold to an A-list
Hollywood producer.” 7 p.m. ClaytonBookshop.com
