(jverse.com, Nov. 16, Jeff Carlson)

Here’s a freak twist of fate for you. I can see Alan Jacobson’s house from my front yard. He lives on the street across from us, and, through bad fortune, is also much closer to the new construction than I am. The 5000 sq. ft. monster-mansion is basically done… but the shack on the next property down the hill has also sold, and someone else is knocking it down as well as cutting out a lot of brush and trees. Welcome to the war zone! Chainsaws! Bulldozers! Hammers in the sky!

In the meantime, Alan is writing kick-ass, bestselling, twists-and-turns murder suspense novels — no doubt in response to the nonstop antagonism directly over his back fence. I mean, you wouldn’t want to run into Alan in a dark alley.

The funny part is that we lived here for years without meeting. I only learned about him because one of my neighbors, who knows I’m a novelist, reported that there was another writer in the area after his teenage sons were caught whacking apples with a bat into the side of Alan’s house. My neighbor and Alan got talking. My neighbor relayed Alan’s occupation to me. But I never quite got around to knocking on his door. What do you say? “Hello. You write, I write, we… write?”

I read his books, though. False Accusations was particularly good, like John Grisham meets Fatal Attraction. Fun. Scary!

Then we met by coincidence in the local B&N. I’d come in to sign stock and recognized the manager with some guy. I stopped to say hello, and she introduced us — two miles from our homes, which are probably two hundred yards apart. Life is funny.

Long story short, if you’re up for some nail-biting suspense that luminaries such as James Patterson and Nelson DeMille call “compelling“ and “an impressively researched novel about serial murder packed into a tightly twisting plot,“ Alan is your guy.

The 7th Victim is gruesome, gripping, and lightning-paced. How’s that for a nice jacket blurb!?! 😉