By Menachem Wecker
The reference to a GW researcher soaking the hand of a victim of a serial killer in a particular chemical to obtain a fingerprint on page 126 of the novel Crush “came by accident,” according to author Alan Jacobson.
“My wife had just read an article in the Hatchet about a GW forensic science professor who had used a unique procedure for rehydrating skin while helping to ID Katrina victims,” says Mr. Jacobson, whose sons Matt and Corey are both students at GW. “The article was perfect timing! I instantly incorporated it into the story. In that case, we knew of the professor because of our GW connection.”
Mr. Jacobson, who lives in northern California, is the author of five novels, including his latest, Velocity, which contains a scene set in Kogan Plaza. He will be on campus during Colonials Weekend to sign copies of his books.
Covert Defense Department operative Hector DeSantos, one of the characters in the novel, is a GW alumnus, and he “makes a quip about his contribution to the alumni fund,” Mr. Jacobson says. “My son Corey worked last year for Colonial Connection, the group that calls alumni for donations, so that was a tongue-in-cheek tie-in.”
Barton Kogan, B.B.A. ’69, M.A. ’70, the plaza’s namesake, also just happens to be a close friend of Mr. Jacobson’s wife and her family of about four decades.
“On one of Bart’s trips to D.C., he had coffee with Corey. I thought it would be cool for me to set the Velocity scene at Kogan Plaza,” says Mr. Jacobson. “Not only does this scene prove pivotal in the plot, but it also sets up a humorous scene involving DeSantos parking his Corvette on D.C. streets.”
If Mr. Jacobson’s stories seem to reflect an insider’s knowledge of forensic science and crime scene analysis, it is because he is a meticulous researcher, who approaches his novels like an investigative reporter.
“There’s no substitute for seeing and doing and smelling the actual thing. Some well-known novelists brag that they ‘just make it all up,’” he says. “I have no interest in doing that.”
When he first met an FBI agent who would become a close friend, the two would talk for hours about profiling, Mr. Jacobson says. “He was shortly thereafter promoted to the FBI Behavioral Analysis (profiling) Unit, and our discussions (and my visits to the unit) continued,” he says. “I realized I wanted to write a novel involving a profiler—I found the subject fascinating.”
As he continued his “private training,” Mr. Jacobson realized that to credibly and realistically write Special Agent Karen Vail, the main character, and the killers, he needed to have “a thorough understanding of the material.”
“Yes, I could’ve made it all up—and I could’ve written all sorts of garbage that we’ve seen in some movies and books,” he says. “But the profiler said to me, early on, that he wanted me to respect the victims and the difficult job the profilers had. I pledged to him that I would do just that.”
In addition to working with the agent and the real FBI profiler that Vail is based on (both are the first female FBI profiler), Mr. Jacobson has worked “extensively” with the Drug Enforcement Administration (Velocity), U.S. Marshals Service (a forthcoming novel), SWAT (Velocity, The Seventh Victim) and a “host of local police and sheriffs departments, forensic scientists and Napa Valley wineries” (Crush, Velocity).
“There is no substitute for shadowing the men and women who are actually doing what I’m writing about,” he says.
Mr. Jacobson says research has been an “obsession” since his college days as an English major when a professor criticized a short story he wrote about a soldier who had been shot in the abdomen on the grounds that Mr. Jacobson didn’t understand how painful the wounds would have been.
“I’d obviously struck a nerve—perhaps he’d been injured in a war—and he totally embarrassed me in front of the entire class,” Mr. Jacobson says. “It wasn’t until many years later that I realized that had been my first lesson in learning to do my homework to ‘get it right.’”
Perhaps the best indication he has learned his lesson is the steady stream of emails he receives from law enforcement officers who thank him for “getting it right.”
Mr. Jacobson’s encourages students who aspire to work professionally as writers to have “realistic expectations.”
“This is an incredibly difficult field to break into, and it’s changed exponentially in the past decade,” he says. “The portals for traditional publishing are getting narrower and fewer. The merit of an author’s talent matters less than the marketability of her concept. It’s a shame, but it’s a fact.”
But while the field is tough, there is hope, because e-books have “caught fire” and “will continue to grow in coming months and years,” he says.
“That said, writing skills are never wasted. Almost any professional career recognizes a person with superior writing ability. Communication in today’s socially networked and connected global world is of prime importance,” he says. “I see a need for skilled writers in all the branches that communications may comprise, both now and in the future.”
Mr. Jacobson will be signing Velocity, which was released on Oct. 5, at the GW Bookstore on Oct. 16, from noon to 2 p.m. He will donate $5 for each copy of Velocity that he sells at the bookstore to GW.