Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What was Alan Jacobson's first published book?
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.[17] 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 (False Accusations) involving the character of Ryan Chandler.[18]
What You See Is What You Get is the autobiography of British businessman and TV personality Lord Alan Sugar. The 640-page book, which was published in May 2011, tells the story of Alan Sugar's birth and childhood in a deprived part of London, how he founded the company Amstrad aged just 21 years old, and how he eventually became a successful multi-millionaire tycoon, received a knighthood, and was appointed to the House of Lords. Sir Alan also reveals his main method of business and entrepreneurial activity: (a) observing what market leaders are doing, (b) making better and cheaper products than the market leaders, and (c) not focusing on the exclusive or more expensive parts of the market, rather selling to the mass market.
Two of Jacobson's short stories have been published. The first, Fatal Twist, features FBI profiler Karen Vail and was published by the Strand magazine in 2012.[52] The second, Double Take, features two characters from the Karen Vail series, Carmine Russo and Ben Dyer from Spectrum. Russo and Dyer were created for the short story, and were later integrated into Spectrum for the novel. Double Take what originally bundled with Hard Target (OPSIG #2) as a value-added bonus for the ebook release. It was subsequently sold separately.
Jacobson felt the bottom line is that he doesn’t want the reader to put the book down, where they lose interest and close the book forever. There has to be something that drives the story forward, whether that be intrigue, suspense, mystery, and/or the characters themselves. Good pacing, realistic dialogue, a vivid setting, and rich writing are all key components to a compelling read.
Jacobson has published several books and articles, a selection:
In October 2010 Jacobson won the Man Booker Prize for his novel "The Finkler Question", which was the first comic novel to win the prize since Kingsley Amis's "The Old Devils" in 1986. The book, published by Bloomsbury, explores what it means to be Jewish today and is also about "love, loss and male friendship". Andrew Motion, the chair of the judges, said: ""The Finkler Question" is a marvellous book: very funny, of course, but also very clever, very sad and very subtle. It is all that it seems to be and much more than it seems to be. A completely worthy winner of this great prize." His novel "Zoo Time" won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize (2013), Jacobson's second time winning the prize (the first in 1999 for "The Mighty Walzer").
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.
Jacobson's debut novel, False Accusations, was adapted into a TV movie in 2004 in the Czech Republic. Iconic screenwriter Jirí Hubac penned the screenplay based on Alan Jacobson's bestselling novel. The movie was directed by Zdenek Zelenka.[51] It aired multiple times and was renewed for another set of airings in 2012.
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.[14]
It was not until a year later, when Jacobson was talking with Scott Turow, did Jacobson discover what had sunk the project. Ironically, the National Basketball Association (NBA) strike severely impacted TNT's overall ratings.
Jacobson never intended to write a series. He had seen colleagues become stale writing the same character in the same setting, essentially writing the same book over and over. When approached by his publisher, Roger Cooper, who was prepping The 7th Victim for production, Cooper asked when the next book in the Karen Vail series would be ready. Jacobson told him that The 7th Victim was a one-off, a standalone novel. Cooper told him all the sales reps and bookstores loved Vail and wanted more. Jacobson said he would have to think about it and figure out a way of keeping Vail, and himself, fresh from book to book.[43] About a week later, he figured out how to make that happen and the Karen Vail series was born.[44] In retrospect, Jacobson credited Cooper in the acknowledgments to No Way Out (Vail #5), stating that without Cooper's urging, the adventures he has had so much fun writing might never have occurred.
In 2013, Jacobson published two coloring books with Chronicle Books: "Color This Book: New York City" and "Color This Book: San Francisco". Jacobson also illustrated a book titled "Carry This Book," published October 2016 by Viking Press. It features colorful, humorous illustrations of the imagined contents of various celebrities' bags. "I have always been intrigued by what people carry around with them. It can tell you everything" says Jacobson in the book's introduction. Well-received by critics, "Carry This Book" was a "New York Times" bestseller.
Jacobson wrote the first seventy-five pages of The 7th Victim in the first person point of view. However, his agent told him he could not use the first person because his first two novels (False Accusations and The Hunted) were written in the third person. He was frustrated because he thought it was some of his best writing, so he used Find/Replace in Microsoft Word and replaced all the I's with She's and so on. When he read what was left, he realized it was third person with a first person feel, very close to the reader. The reader was privy to Vail's internal thoughts, experiencing things as Vail experienced them, hearing what she was thinking. They are things that people think but never say aloud. Sometimes Vail does say them aloud, which can create problems with colleagues. These thoughts can be sarcastic or dry humor, and they can be very funny. Jacobson characterizes his discovery as being accidental.[27][28]
It was developed by American physician Edmund Jacobson and presented first in 1908 at Harvard University. In 1929, Jacobson published the book "Progressive Relaxation", which included a detailed procedure for removing muscular tension. His work led to the use of the word "relax", in the sense of "to become less tense, anxious or stressed, to calm down". He continued to work on this topic throughout his life and wrote several books about it.
Jacobson believes that characters are of highest priority because that is what often keeps the reader reading. He calls this reader engagement. A successful novel must have characters that readers care about. If they don’t develop a connection with the characters, reading that book would become a chore rather than something they look forward to doing.[33]
Jacobson and retired FBI profiler Mark Safarik co-authored a book on personal safety entitled, “Staying Safe: from serial killers to identity thieves, a primer to keep you out of criminals’ crosshairs.” The book came about because of an interview Jacobson and Safarik did for The 7th Victim. They were discussing what steps a woman could take to prevent herself from falling victim to the tactics the killer uses in the opening scene. Afterwards, they realized it was important information that everyone should have. They set out to write an article but found they had too much information and ultimately wrote a book.[48][49] It is updated periodically and given away for free on Jacobson's website as an incentive for readers to sign up for his author newsletter.[50]
While at WBBM, Jacobson also became known for his temper. In March 1977, he was suspended with pay for two days for being what his news director labeled a "disruptive element" in the newsroom. "I think arguments are healthy, and I certainly don't think I've been abusive," Jacobson told the Chicago Tribune at the time. In April 1986, Jacobson got into a shouting match with Ken Boles, a WBBM executive news producer, in a bank near WBBM's studios. Boles was fired several weeks later. In February 1988, another shouting match occurred in the middle of the newsroom between Jacobson and an assignment desk editor, regarding the previous evening's newscast. And, in February 1992, Jacobson was reported to have thrown a book at a newsroom staffer's head, causing both him and the staffer to be summoned to the office of the station's general manager. Jacobson later explained to the Tribune that the incident merely was his producer tossing a book over a divider, and Jacobson then "tossing it back." In February 1994—after jumping to WFLD—Jacobson exclaimed, "Oh, fuck you!" to an off-camera director during a live newscast. "I just snapped for an instant," he told the Chicago Sun-Times. "I muttered a swear word under my breath. I exploded. I'm human."
In 1998, Simon & Schuster's Pocket Books imprint inked Jacobson to a solid six-figure deal for two thrillers, False Accusations and The Hunted. The former was originally published by a small Canadian publisher, Commonwealth, that went into bankruptcy just as it was preparing to ship books to stores. Jacobson was able to get them to distribute a fraction of the first printing and it caught on and sold well. But retailers were unable to order additional copies and Jacobson had to sue Commonwealth by hiring a Canadian law firm. He ultimately won the case and the rights reverted to him, thanks to a clause inserted by his entertainment law attorney, Robert Youdelman, Esq.[26] His agent then sold the rights to Emily Bestler, then vice president and editor-in-chief of Pocket Books. This resulted in the two-book deal that included The Hunted (later rebranded as book one of the OPSIG Team Black series).
The character of Karen Vail was originally conceived in the mid-1990s as a one-chapter FBI agent. But once Jacobson started writing her, he could not stop. He realized he had to find a vehicle for her, and during his research work with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, he knew the perfect place for her would be as the first female FBI profiler, in a book featuring her. He was influenced by the strong wills and constitutions of both his mother and his wife, as well as Jacobson's own New York upbringing.
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.
Jacobson said that as the series has progressed, Vail has learned to tone it down her dry, New York sarcasm.[29] She has grown as a person, that her evolution from book to book is tangible but subtle.[30] Rather than verbalizing those acerbic and often very funny remarks as retorts, she is now more likely to keep them as thoughts between herself and the reader, like an inside joke.[31]
Alan Jacobson (born 12 November 1942) is an Australian former cricketer. He played one first-class match for Tasmania in 1968/69.
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.
The idea of relaxation in psychology was popularized by Dr.Edmund Jacobson in his published book "Progressive Relaxation". It was a technical book intended for doctors and scientists. His book describes tensing and relaxing specific muscles at a time to achieve overall relaxation in the body. Jacobson then published another book called "You Must Relax "published in 1934 that was geared towards the general public. According to Jacobson, his research started in 1908 at Harvard University, and later moving on to Cornell and University of Chicago. His research was aimed at improving the general human well being.
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 (2008), 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”.[25]