Karen Vail
7 primary works • 10 total works
Book 1
Book 2
And through it all, a surprise lurksone that Karen Vail never sees coming. Meticulously researched during years of work with the FBI profiling unit and extensive interviews with wine industry professionals, bestselling author Alan Jacobson delivers a high-velocity thriller featuring the kind of edge-of-your-seat ending that inspired Nelson DeMille to call him "a hell of a writer."
Book 3
After a colleague connects Vail with covert Department of Defense operative Hector DeSantos, who has a knack for uncovering difficult-to-locate information, the pair pries loose long-buried secrets and deceptions that reveal a much-larger criminal enterprise at work. As Vail squares off against foes more dangerous than any she has yet encountered, shocking personal and professional truths emerge-truths that may be more than she can handle.
In keeping with Alan Jacobson's page-turning style, Velocity is a high-octane thriller, a memorable work rich in believable characters and an intricately plotted story that's well-researched and ripped from today's headlines. Velocity was named one of the Strand Magazine's top ten books for 2010, Suspense Magazine's top five thrillers of 2010, Library Journal's top five thrillers of the year, and the Los Angeles Times' top picks of the year.
Velocity is the second installment of a two-part story that begins with Crush, book two of the Karen Vail Series.
Book 5
When a potent firebomb destroys part of an art gallery in an exclusive London district, FBI profiler Karen Vail is dispatched to England to work with Scotland Yard on drafting a threat assessment to head off future attacks. But Vail soon discovers that at the heart of the bombing lies a four-hundred-forty-year-old manuscript that holds clues to England's past-with dramatic political and social implications. The manuscript's content is so explosive that a group of political radicals is bent on destroying it at all costs.
Or is it the work of someone else? The trail leads Vail to a notorious fugitive who has escaped law enforcement for decades, and who appears to be planning a major attack on London and the United States. When Hector DeSantos, banished from the US Department of Defense and now a rogue covert operative, turns up in England and takes actions that threaten Vail's life, she finds herself on the run from the British security service, Scotland Yard, and a group of internationally trained assassins-all determined to silence her . . . all tightening the net to ensure that she's got no way out.
With his trademark spirited dialogue, page-turning scenes, and well-drawn characters, national bestselling author Alan Jacobson ("My kind of writer," says Michael Connelly) has once again crafted an intelligent, twisting thriller destined to be talked about long after the last page has been turned.
Book 6
FBI profiler Karen Vail is haunted by a serial killer from her rookie days in a "pulse-pounding" thriller by a USA Today bestselling author (Providence Journal).
New York City: home to world-renowned museums, theater, restaurants, iconic sports franchises. Central Park. Wall Street. And an infamous serial killer who's terrorized the Big Apple for decades.
The year is 1995 and the NYPD has just graduated a promising new patrol officer named Karen Vail. The rookie's first day on the job is anything but easy when she finds herself at the crime scene of a young woman murdered in an unusual manner. Vail is unsure of what she's looking at or what it means-but it's a case that will weigh on her mind for nearly twenty years.
As the years pass, Vail's career takes unexpected twists and turns-as does the case that's come to be known as Hades. Now a skilled FBI profiler, will Vail be in a better position to catch the killer? Or will Hades prove to be Karen Vail's hell on earth?
The character who has captivated readers worldwide-and who won the praise of literary giants Michael Connelly, James Patterson, and Nelson DeMille-returns in a story that captures the experiences that shaped the revered profiler and made her the top cop she is today.
Book 7
Jasmine Marcks was a teenager when she discovered her father was a killer. First, there was the strip of bloody duct tape; then, the bloodstain on his shirt; and finally, the long nights away from home that always coincided with gruesome deaths. Roscoe Lee Marcks killed fourteen people before he was finally put behind bars. But as renowned FBI agent Karen Vail soon learns, Marcks's reign of terror isn't over yet.
After writing a book about growing up as the child of a serial killer, Jasmine receives a letter-a single sheet of paper mailed from the maximum-security prison Marcks now calls home. The page hides a threatening message from a father who wants vengeance against the daughter who turned him in to the police. So when Marcks breaks out of prison, Agent Vail calls on a legendary retired profiler to help her find the escaped convict-and keep him from making Jasmine his fifteenth victim.
Alan Jacobson created Karen Vail-one of the most compelling heroes in suspense fiction, earning acclaim from James Patterson, Nelson DeMille, and Michael Connelly-after seven years of working with two senior profilers at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's legendary Behavioral Analysis Unit. Over the years, Vail has tangled with the worst serial killers America has to offer. But none compares to Roscoe Lee Marcks.
Book 8
When Det. Adam Russell of the Honolulu PD encounters the body of a woman in her sixties--the second in recent days to inexplicably die of what seem like natural causes--he reaches out to Karen Vail, the renowned FBI profiler, who hops on the next plane.
But even for someone as fluent in the language of murder as Vail, this case is hard to read. How were these women asphyxiated with no signs of trauma? How can she gather clues or collect evidence when the killer seems to strike during the briefest casual encounters? Is this the behavior of a male or a female perpetrator? And perhaps most terrifying of all, if the deaths appear so natural at first glance, how many victims have already been overlooked?
Now, as something cold and dark lurks under the sunny warmth of this island paradise, Vail must stop a serial killer as elusive as the breeze . . .
"Karen Vail is one tough character." --Kathy Reichs, New York Times-bestselling author
"Jacobson should be mandatory reading for the James Patterson crowd." --Library Journal
"A unique and imaginative plot filled with witty dialogue and page-turning intrigue." --Catherine Coulter, New York Times-bestselling author
When an elderly woman is found raped and brutally murdered in San Francisco, Vail heads west to team up with SFPD Inspector Lance Burden and her former task force colleague Detective Roxxann Dixon.
As Vail, Burden, and Dixon follow the killer's trail in and around San Francisco, the offender continues his rampage, leaving behind clues that ultimately lead them to the most unlikely of places: a mysterious island ripped from city lore whose long-buried, decades-old secrets hold the key to their case. Alcatraz. The Rock.
It's a case that has more twists and turns than the famed Lombard Street . . . and a novel that Clive Cussler calls "a powerful thriller, brilliantly conceived and written."
