Alan Jacobson Books in Order
Browse Alan Jacobson books in order, from Karen Vail to OPSIG Team Black, with quick summaries, series guides, and simple advice on where to start.
Last updated: July 3, 2026
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Publication Order
18 books
False Accusations
by Alan Jacobson
1999
Orthopedic surgeon Phillip Madison seems to have everything until he is charged with a deadly double homicide he insists he did not commit. With the evidence stacked against him, he and investigator Ryan Chandler scramble to expose an elaborate frame-up.
The Hunted
by Alan Jacobson
2001
When Michael Chambers vanishes, his wife Lauren starts pulling at threads that should have stayed buried. Her search exposes hidden ties to the FBI, international assassins, and secrets powerful people will kill to protect.
The 7th Victim
by Alan Jacobson
2008
In Karen Vail's first case, she faces the Dead Eyes killer while carrying heavy personal baggage of her own. The seventh victim becomes the key to a truth that could solve the murders and shatter her career.
Crush
by Alan Jacobson
2009
Sent to Napa for forced time off, Karen Vail finds a corpse in a wine cave and walks straight into a serial killer investigation. Her arrival rattles the case, and the murderer pushes back hard.
Velocity
by Alan Jacobson
2010
Picking up right after Crush, Karen Vail realizes the earlier case was not as solved as it seemed. A new killer, connected in disturbing ways to the last one, drags her into a deeper and more personal nightmare.
Fatal Twist
by Alan Jacobson
2011
Karen Vail hunts the Park Rapist in Washington, D.C., just as another predator, a sniper, lines up a deadly shot. The two threats seem unrelated at first, until the case turns into something far stranger and more dangerous.
Inmate 1577
by Alan Jacobson
2011
Karen Vail heads to San Francisco after a brutal rape-murder, only to find a case tangled with buried secrets and old prison history. The trail leads to Alcatraz, where the past still holds the answer.
Double Take
by Alan Jacobson
2012
After cancer surgery, NYPD detective Ben Dyer wakes to find his fiancee gone without explanation. His search for her uncovers hidden pieces of her life, and troubling links to people inside law enforcement.
Hard Target
by Alan Jacobson
2012
After an explosion tears apart the president-elect's helicopter, FBI agent Aaron Uziel and covert operative Hector DeSantos uncover a terror plot buried deep inside the American system. The clock is brutal, the stakes are national, and nothing about the attack is straightforward.
No Way Out
by Alan Jacobson
2013
A bombing at a London art gallery pulls Karen Vail into a conspiracy centered on a newly unearthed manuscript. Soon she is chasing a long-vanished fugitive while enemies on several sides close in.
Spectrum
by Alan Jacobson
2014
The case called Hades begins when rookie NYPD cop Karen Vail finds herself facing a baffling murder in 1995. Decades later, now an FBI profiler, she gets another shot at the killer who has haunted her entire career.
The Lost Codex
by Alan Jacobson
2015
Stolen biblical documents and coordinated terrorist attacks collide in this international thriller. Karen Vail, Hector DeSantos, and Aaron Uziel race across multiple countries to recover the missing texts and stop a deadly plot on American soil.
The Darkness of Evil
by Alan Jacobson
2017
When the daughter of a locked-up serial killer receives a chilling message from prison, Karen Vail knows the past is moving again. To stop a new wave of terror, she must reopen old wounds and outthink evil that never really went away.
Dark Side of the Moon
by Alan Jacobson
2018
A buried Apollo 17 secret leaks to hostile powers, and OPSIG Team Black is pulled into a crisis that could reshape global warfare. While Vail hunts the source on Earth, Uzi and DeSantos head toward the Moon to stop catastrophe.
Red Death
by Alan Jacobson
2020
In Honolulu, middle-aged women are dying in ways that look natural, until Detective Adam Russell calls in FBI profiler Karen Vail. She faces a killer who leaves almost no trace and may be striking in plain sight.
The Lost Girl
by Alan Jacobson
2021
Still wrecked by the crash that killed her husband and daughter, Amy Robbins latches onto a startling possibility tied to a little girl she meets. Her search for answers puts her up against fixer Mickey Keller and draws her FBI agent sister-in-law into a messy moral fight.
Die Trying
by Alan Jacobson
2025
When Aaron Uziel uncovers explosive intelligence and is told to walk away, he does the opposite. He and Hector DeSantos build a covert mission that turns painfully personal, with treachery above them and international fallout ahead.
Only the Killer Knows
by Alan Jacobson
2026
This collection brings together three dark suspense stories from the Karen Vail universe. Karen Vail faces a death-row countdown and a killer on the streets, while Ben Dyer chases the truth behind his fiancee's disappearance.
Where should I start?
If you want the Karen Vail story from the beginning: The 7th Victim → Crush → Velocity
If you want Karen Vail's origin as a cop: Spectrum
If you want covert ops and bigger geopolitical stakes: The Hunted → Hard Target → The Lost Codex
If you want a pure standalone thriller first: False Accusations
If you want a newer, morally gray suspense novel: The Lost Girl
Author bio
Alan Jacobson grew up in Queens, New York, during years he has described as tense, divided, and often volatile. In junior high, one bright spot was an English teacher named Louis Brill, who helped spark his love of language. That early push toward writing stayed with him.
It did not send him straight into a fiction career, though.
Jacobson studied English at Queens College, then moved to California and practiced chiropractic for years. Writing was still there, but it was not yet the center of his working life. Then a random phone call changed things. He ended up auditing a blood spatter class at the California Department of Justice's Criminalists Institute, where he met an FBI agent who opened the door to a much larger world of research.
That one meeting led to FBI seminars, visits to Quantico, and years of close work with senior profilers Mark Safarik and Mary Ellen O'Toole. Jacobson has said those experiences shaped both his characters and his plots. You can feel it in the books. The investigations have weight, the procedures matter, and the people doing the work usually sound like people who have actually done the job.
That research shows.
His first novel, False Accusations, became a bestseller, and The Hunted followed with another high-stakes story built around secrets, danger, and people under pressure. Then came The 7th Victim, the book that introduced FBI profiler Karen Vail and set the course for much of his later fiction. Vail is tough, funny, impatient, and hard to fool. Readers who like crime fiction with strong procedure tend to latch onto her quickly.
From there, Jacobson kept expanding Vail's world. Crush and Velocity take her into Napa Valley and turn one case into a much larger ordeal. Inmate 1577 pulls her to San Francisco and Alcatraz. No Way Out sends her to London. Spectrum circles back to her early days as a New York cop, and Red Death drops her into a Hawaii case where the murders barely look like murders at all. What ties those books together is not just the crime. It is Vail's voice, her persistence, and the sense that each case leaves a mark.
Jacobson did not stay in one lane. Alongside Karen Vail, he built the OPSIG Team Black novels, including Hard Target, The Lost Codex, Dark Side of the Moon, and Die Trying. These books trade profiling for covert missions, political risk, and global stakes, while keeping the same interest in research and operational detail. Later, The Lost Girl introduced Mickey Keller, a fixer at the center of a more intimate, morally messy kind of suspense.
Some of his books have been optioned for film, and False Accusations was adapted by Czech screenwriter Jiri Hubak. But Jacobson has also been pretty clear about where his real focus sits. On the page.
He continues to write across the Karen Vail and OPSIG worlds, with the same habit that first pulled him toward crime fiction: learn the job, talk to the people who do it, and then build the story from there. That may be the simplest way to understand his work. He likes thrillers that move, but he wants them grounded in how people think, how institutions work, and how quickly a life can change after one chance encounter.
Edited by
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